Pain
by In the House
Summary: House consults a pain management specialist, but his case will become more complicated than even he expected. Follows Housewarming. House/Cuddy, Jensen, Wilson, Thomas, and more.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: We're off on the next long roller coaster in this universe. This story follows Housewarming but can be read as a standalone if you haven't had time for the others, and relevant background information needed will become obvious in the reading. I don't own House. I do own Jensen, Thomas, Abby, and assorted other OCs.

Also as a disclaimer, I'm not a doctor, so apologies for any errors that slipped through research. However, I have had a conversation with a doctor about this fictional case, and it's a rare week that I don't run into at least a couple of pain management consults in the course of my job. I also have a gimpy leg myself and the sequelae of a bad hand injury, though nowhere near the level of House's experiences. I'm excited about this one. This is the House story I have wanted to write for several years, but I had to wait for the muse's timing on it. Can't force her to do anything. But _this_ is probably the largest extended complaint I had against the TV show, that they changed House's pain from a chronic and physical condition related to the legitimate medical background given early (Three Stories, etc.) to something portrayed as 99.999% psychosomatic by the end (which for me is Help Me) that only flared up due to emotional stress.

Just a reminder, this universe diverged from canon partway through the Greater Good. Anything after that is fair game to be altered. Anything after Help Me I haven't seen and has no relevance at all, not even for altered plot ideas, to this story.

One final note: The patient mentioned in this chapter by House is an immediate relative, and all case details are entirely as they happened other than House solving the case. (Wish he'd been there; would have caught it sooner.) Just as a warning, if you take Neurontin/gabapentin, which millions of people do, please be aware of the possibility and have a low threshold for deciding to go get odd pains checked out instead of dismissing it as muscle strain or something. This is a rare side effect, but it is potentially a fatal one. It nearly killed my family member, who had taken the drug for a few years with good pain management results and absolutely no problems before it suddenly became one, so the fact that you've never had problems with it doesn't mean you couldn't start. It's a great med for a lot of patients, but just be aware.

Enjoy Pain! (As one reviewer mentioned at the end of Housewarming, there's a concept you couldn't imagine expressing too often.)

(H/C)

The clock on the wall of the outer office seemed to tick more loudly than usual, each second falling heavily. Jensen was wandering around the office, not quite pacing but close to it. He walked restlessly over to the window and looked out into the business district, life bustling by down in the street below. He checked his watch, compared the answer to the wall clock, and took another half tour of the room.

The secretary watched him. "He's not usually late," she said with an edge of concern herself.

"No, he's not," the psychiatrist agreed. House was hardly militant about the time, in fact deliberately refusing to be predictable and obsessive to the minute about appointments. But for all that, Jensen knew that he made an unstated effort to be considerate, though he would have denied it. He was always aware that he was the last session of the day and that Jensen had a family evening planned at home. Also, given his two-hour commute from the next state and his need to stretch out his leg halfway, he tended to allow a cushion time, even more of one than he usually required. Jensen thought that most of the time, unless there was a critical case, House enjoyed the ready-made excuse of leaving work early Friday afternoons, like a kid with a pass out of the last few hours of school. If anything, he tended to be a little early, usually arriving anywhere in the last twenty minutes of the previous session. He would sit there and people watch, commenting on passersby in the hall outside the glass door to Jensen's offices, occasionally teasing the secretary or analyzing some detail about her day with flawless accuracy. Janice was fond of him herself by this point and looked forward to him as a nice weekly break from the usual waiting room behavior.

"You could call him," Janice suggested.

Jensen consulted his watch and then the wall clock again. 4:18. "If he's not here by 4:30, I will. Hopefully, it's just traffic, and nothing more has happened."

Janice sighed. "What's left?" she noted.

Jensen had to concede that point. Having House for a patient the last three and a half years had indeed involved a lot more than this office. "Even his luck can't run bad all the time," he replied, but it was a hope, not a conviction.

At that moment, House emerged from the elevator down the hall a little ways and across it, easily visible through the glass door, and Jensen relaxed. House looked toward the office the second he emerged and saw the psychiatrist standing there waiting. He tightened up even more than he had been, and he had obviously been ruffled anyway. He limped on to the office and opened the door, checking the old watch that had been his grandfather's. "Damned road construction," he snarled. "What kind of morons think that Friday afternoon approaching rush hour is the best time to work on the highway?"

"I'm just glad you're all right," Jensen said soothingly, though he knew already that there was more than road construction involved here. House knew he knew it, too.

"Haven't you got work to do?" House snapped at the secretary as he limped past her to the door to the inner office.

Janice, who had been watching the exchange between him and Jensen with interest, gave him a smile that wasn't at all cowed and then turned her attention to her paperwork. Jensen paused by her desk as House went on in. "You don't have to stay late if we're not done by 5:00," he told her. "Just go ahead."

She smiled at him. "Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow morning." Jensen still had a few appointments on Saturday mornings for clients who couldn't manage weekdays, though the office shut down early two other days of the week to compensate so neither of them usually pulled overtime.

Jensen went on into his inner office and closed the door. House was in a new chair for him, one set a little to the side. Jensen walked over to the coffee pot in the corner and poured each of them a cup, knowing by now exactly how House liked it. He handed House his cup, then walked on to his usual chair next to House's favorite with the ottoman. "You do realize," the psychiatrist said as he sat down, "that trying to avoid sending me subliminal messages by not picking the chair in front of the desk like you usually do when you're mad at your leg doesn't work that well if you still refuse to use the most comfortable one for you."

House glared at him. Half the office stretched between them. Jensen sat back, relaxed on the surface but intent, and took a sip of his coffee. "Where was the road construction?" he asked. "Don't want to be delayed myself tomorrow afternoon getting out of town."

"Considering Princeton is totally the wrong direction for where you're heading tomorrow afternoon and you know it, that's a lousy way to pretend to open the subject. You're usually better manipulating conversation than that."

Jensen gave him a disarming smile. "I'm not quite up to the usual games yet. I was worried about you."

House looked down, still wondering at the concern even while feeling a little guilty at having caused it. "Half the trip on the highway. They were resurfacing and also repainting lines on what they'd already done. On _Friday afternoon._" He took a swallow of his coffee.

"You took the motorcycle," Jensen commented.

After three and a half years, House could still be surprised at Jensen's perception. He was so used to operating above those around him that it was always a little jolting to run into somebody as good in another field as he was at medicine. "Yes, damn it, I took the motorcycle. And didn't even wreck it, so you and Lisa and Wilson don't need to have kittens."

He was more relaxed than he used to be about using Cuddy's first name in these sessions, and it no longer was an automatic indicator of emotional tension, but today, Jensen thought the old significance still applied. "What did happen on the trip?" he asked.

House shifted. The physical distance between them loomed. In the past, whenever he had deliberately picked the chair in front of the desk, and yes, he usually did do it specifically when he was mad at himself physically to restrict the ability to ease his leg by stretching it out, Jensen had followed him and sat down just across the desk. Now the psychiatrist was installed amiably but stubbornly clear across the office at their usual location. Talking in sessions was something he had long since realized helped. It truly helped, difficult as it was, and Jensen was the easiest person he'd ever met to talk to, and the psychiatrist normally made the setting as easy as it could be, not that that still wasn't difficult, given their usual topics.

"What happened?" Jensen repeated. He knew that House wanted to talk about it. House himself knew that he wanted to talk about it. He just needed to be stubborn for a while first, which told Jensen that the subject about to be opened was large.

House lurched to his feet. "If you're going to drag it out of me, I might as well have something positive from today at the same time." He limped over to the guitar on the wall, taking it down deliberately without asking permission. Jensen said nothing, nor did he comment when House came over to the adjacent chair with the ottoman and sat down. His fingers strummed the strings, and he tightened one, then tried again, seeking the instrument's voice. Jensen got up silently, retrieved House's coffee cup from beside the other chair, and returned.

House stared into the distance, the music filling the office. Today, it was as restless as he was. "I took the motorcycle at the last minute," he said. "Damned car is starting to act up a little lately. I think the transmission is about to crap out again. I've already practically built a new bay for the garage by this point. Useless piece of junk."

"Then why do you keep it?" Jensen asked.

As he'd expected, House reacted by dodging the question and centering down on the story at hand. Jensen wasn't sure precisely what kind of emotional monument the old car was to him, though he had a few theories, but he knew that House didn't want to talk about it. Any casual suggestion that he replace it from Cuddy, Wilson, or anybody else was never received casually. "I took the bike," House repeated. "I haven't ridden it as much this year. Not with the busted ribs and all." Jensen nodded. "But that's all healed up, and it was great weather for it today. I've been in PT for a few months. Nothing wrong with my side now."

He paused, and the guitar mournfully faded into silence. House reached out for his retrieved coffee cup and took several swallows. "There _was_ road construction. One lane closed, then the other one. Changing back and forth several times. And there was a lot of traffic." He hesitated again, and Jensen left him alone, giving him space to gather himself for the leap. "My balance isn't as good as it used to be, especially switching back and forth, changing directions and speeds like that. _Things_ aren't as good as they used to be a few years ago. And I don't think it's the explosion still."

The guitar took over for him, expressing what words weren't adequate to convey. Loss. Tension. Pain.

After a minute lost in the music, House snapped back to awareness and looked quickly over at Jensen, searching for any pity. He saw nothing in Jensen's deep eyes except compassion. "I agree," Jensen said. "Your leg has gotten a little worse since we started these sessions years ago."

House slammed his hand down abruptly, annoyed, and the guitar squealed in protest. He gave it a pat of apology. "I've done PT. I've changed a few things on the meds. You know I'm still on Voltaren since the track, and that's better than ibuprofen."

"Yes," Jensen said. "You've tried almost everything with your leg. But logically, that amount of physical damage isn't going to get better. In fact, as you age, it's almost certainly going to get worse. Hopefully as a slow decline, like it has been."

"I've tried _almost_ everything, you said," House challenged him. "What haven't I tried? If you're talking about amputation, I am _not_ heading there. That isn't something you _try_. No whoops, didn't work, put it back on. Besides, I'm not an ideal candidate for it. Too high, and all these years of off-balance walking have probably screwed my body and joints already anyway."

Jensen left amputation, which he knew was another emotional block, alone. "There are probably several things you haven't tried yet, but I know you've put a lot of effort into it. You've looked harder for an answer than anyone else who has ever criticized you. But to answer your question, what I was referring to there was a formal pain management consult."

House met his eyes. "How the hell did you know I was thinking of that?"

"Your undertones when you said you took the motorcycle today. That was a _test_, Dr. House. It was a test even before you encountered the road construction, and you wanted it to be. You've plateaued on the physical therapy, which isn't because you haven't given it everything. It's just an unfortunate medical fact. You were already considering further steps before today's trip. You also have a recent needle mark on your left forearm. You've drawn blood on yourself within the last day or two, and you seem totally at your baseline, not sick. Running liver functions?"

House looked down at his arm. The weather was a brilliant, end-of-summer day, early September not starting to get crispy yet, and he was wearing short sleeves. He yielded. "LFTs are just slightly abnormal. Better than they were back before I got with Cuddy. No better than they were last year." That, too, had plateaued. "I was hoping they'd continue going down. They did a good bit at first, even with the Vicodin."

"You're also only using alcohol socially the last few years and no longer as self-treatment for insomnia and depression," Jensen pointed out. "I'm sure that was a culprit along with the Vicodin in the past. But you know Vicodin isn't an ideal chronic pain medication."

House resumed playing, the chords a little agitated, slightly too fast for the tune. "I _have_ to be able to think," he insisted. "Everything else I've ever tried either wasn't strong enough or was too strong."

"Why not ask an expert for an opinion? There might be options you haven't thought of, new developments, even. I know you research, too, but _nobody_ can see things totally objectively about themselves, no matter how much of a genius they are at seeing others. This also isn't your field. It's not impossible that people specializing in it know more about treatment options than you do."

House sighed. "There's actually a pain doc who set up practice in Philly this summer. Scottish, just came over. Not as much of an idiot as most of them. I'd thought once or twice of making an appointment."

_Once or twice,_ Jensen thought skeptically. _And you tried PT clear to a standstill first in an effort to avoid being forced to that._ "You've mentioned before that you saw a PM doctor after your leg surgery, but you didn't go into details."

The music switched from agitated to plain mad. House chased out a complicated melody for a few minutes, and Jensen checked his watch and then pulled out his cell phone to send a quick text to Melissa. House noticed, of course, and twisted his wrist for his own time check, managing not to mar the music during that maneuver. He did at least resume the story promptly, a silent concession to Jensen's waiting family. "I got referred after the surgery. He was a _moron._ Worse, he was a moron with a one-fits-all answer."

Jensen flinched. "Like Cathy's first piano teacher."

The guitar settled a bit on the mutual memory of an idiot exposed and dismissed. "Yeah. Exactly. This one's magic pill that he wanted to prescribe everybody was gabapentin."

"How long after your surgery was this?" Jensen asked.

"Two weeks at the initial consult," House replied. "I was still an inpatient."

Jensen shook his head. "I've got a few patients who are on it. Very good for neuropathic pain, but at that stage, you would have still been having acute surgical pain as the primary component. Even now, I'm sure neuropathic is only part of the pain equation."

House nodded. "There is . . . _some_ neuropathic pain." That statement itself was a concession. Jensen had wondered before why House wasn't on a neuroleptic along with the pure painkillers, but House had never before been as receptive to talking about details with his pain treatment as he was right now. "But yes, this idiot thought that gapabentin alone could handle everything, at least would be able to eventually. I was concerned about starting it, and I told him so."

"Why were you concerned about starting it?" Jensen asked. There was an actual medical reason there, he thought, not just automatic defiance in response to an idiot.

"Gabapentin has a rare side-effect that can crop up. It can cause blood clots."

"I'd never heard that," Jensen said. "I can see why you'd be hesitant after the infarction."

"Not many people have heard that. It doesn't come up often, but when it does, it can be very hard to manage. Even breaking through Coumadin. Even a lot of doctors prescribing it aren't familiar with that possibility. There are a lot of other side-effects that are more common; that one is relegated to the very fine print. But I'd run into it a few times in patients, so I already knew about it back then. I've seen it since, too. Take a consult I had about five years ago. Email consult. Patient originally presented to the ER with acute unilateral leg pain and was diagnosed with DVT. But he had _no_ risk factors for it. No previous clots, no long trips, no immobility. It came out of the blue. He was started on Coumadin. Back within a few days, shortness of breath, and he had developed severe saddle pulmonary emboli."

"While on Coumadin?" Jensen asked.

"Yes. They thought maybe he just hadn't had time to get fully therapeutic yet. Admitted and treated him, but that started a whole year of cascading clots. DVTs, pulmonary emboli. He'd throw them even with INR therapeutic. They switched to enoxaparin. Same thing. After his third bout of pulmonary emboli, that one bad enough that the doctors couldn't believe he was still alive and breathing at all, they put in an IVC filter. That protected the lungs, but he still kept having DVTs in the legs. He also had pneumonia three times, and he'd never had that, either. He had eight inpatient hospitalizations inside a year. Nothing anybody tried broke the cycle. _Finally_, his PCP consulted me. First thing I asked was if he was on gapabentin. He took it chronically for post-herpetic neuralgia - with great pain management, by the way. I advised weaning him off that ASAP. His PCP was skeptical because he'd been on the drug for a few years without problems, but they were down to grasping any straw offered. They titrated him off, and he got better. I asked that PCP to send me updates once a year. Just got one a few weeks ago. Off the med, he has never had another clot of any kind in four years. He's been off all anticoagulation for three years. He also, incidentally, hasn't had pneumonia again; that's another little-known side-effect it can cause. It _was_ the gabapentin. Unfortunately, the other options aren't as effective at treating his post-herpetic neuralgia as that one was, but he agrees that breathing is pretty necessary, even over improved pain relief."

Jensen was fascinated. "I'd never heard of that," he repeated. "I'll make sure to mention it to my patients who are on it just in case. So you refused to try gabapentin after your infarction, and that ticked off the PM?"

"No, I _did_ agree to try it," House said. Jensen was impressed. "I just expressed the concern and said I wanted to be very careful with it and keep an eye out for any possible complications and that I'd drop it immediately if anything questionable came up. But I _did_ want pain relief. I _don't_ enjoy this."

That last was a snarl directed not just at the doctor from the past but at the world. "I believe you," Jensen assured him. "I've always believed you on that. Your pain is very real and physical, Dr. House. There is a little bit of emotional overlay, but there is with almost anybody. I have no doubt that the greatest part by far is physical and that you do want relief. You've kept exploring options over the years, such as the ketamine."

House took a moment to gauge his sincerity, then relaxed a little. Here at least, he wasn't being judged. "So I tried the gabapentin. I was still on other stuff, too, that close to surgery, but we added that. I didn't clot again, even though I insisted on the nurses checking distal pulses every time anybody entered the room, and once I was discharged, I'd fight into position to do it myself. Several times a day. But the med didn't have an effect."

"Not even on the neuropathic components?" Jensen asked.

"No. Obviously, I'm one of the lucky few who aren't affected by it, not even like you're _supposed_ to be affected by it. I was on it for four months. We titrated it up. I kept saying it wasn't making a lick of difference, and the PM finally got annoyed. The day I insisted on titrating back down and stopping it, because it was stupid to run the risks without any return, he told me that I had psyched myself into immunity to it and that I didn't _want _to get better." The bitterness in House's voice was undimmed by the years. "He said it was all in my mind. _All _of it. I couldn't even _walk _yet without crutches still, and that was pushing it. The cane was just a dream. But he was sure the only reason his recommendation had failed and that I was still hurting was that I was a defiant jerk who wouldn't give him the satisfaction of being right." His breathing had accelerated a little. Jensen gave him a minute, and the silence lengthened. The guitar lay across House's lap, stilled.

"I threw a crutch at him," House finally continued.

Jensen smiled. "I hope you nailed him."

"Nothing wrong with my arms. He just about fell over." House's triumphant smirk faded. "Course, so did I. He stalked out and dropped me as a patient. And _that_ was the last time I saw a PM doc."

"There are idiots in any profession," Jensen pointed out. "You said this new Scottish doctor isn't one."

House abruptly realized that the guitar was still in his lap, and he picked it back up. The music was steadier now but thoughtful. "I'd like to get off the Vicodin," he admitted, softly, with the faintest tremor of fear visible beneath his voice. "I've . . . I've got more to live for now. It didn't used to matter as much. But I've been through detox. And I _know_ pain. I've even tried myself cutting it down gradually. I _can't_ get it any lower than it is. Not and still be functional."

"Dr. House, your past experiences with detox are _not_ what it has to be like. In fact, they were _far_ removed from what it should have been like."

"Still not a picnic, even with medical supervision," House shot back. "And either inpatient or outpatient, there's no way I could do that without the girls knowing what was going on."

"No, there isn't," Jensen agreed. "But your family is also the reason you want to make improvements. Besides, they already know some about your leg, and they will keep learning more all the time. You can't prevent that. Just remember, they haven't judged you yet on any of it. Not when Rachel kicked you that day you were all sick and saw just how bad your pain could be. Not when you showed them the old pictures and video of you as an athlete. They love you. They always will. You aren't going to disappoint them by showing pain."

House played on for another minute. "So you think it's a good idea, just like the rest of the universe. Lisa's suggested seeing PM a few times."

"I think that you've been bringing yourself up to this milestone for a long time," Jensen told him. House looked over in surprise. "In fact, if it weren't for Patrick Chandler and then your father, I think you would have tried it before now. They've taken priority, justifiably. But things are more stable now with Thornton. Of course, any earlier and you wouldn't have had such a non-idiotic specialist available to go to since he's new in the country." Jensen reached over to give his arm a squeeze. "Give it a chance, Dr. House. Let an expert in _this_ field chime in and discuss options with you. There may even be things solely or in combination that work _better_ than Vicodin. Not just an exchange but an improvement. I know that you need something; nobody competent is going to suggest that it's all in your head. Obviously, your first experience was not an expert in his field."

House looked at his watch again. "We're ten minutes over." He heaved himself to his feet and walked across to return the guitar to its position on the wall.

"Have you discussed this with Dr. Cuddy yet?" Jensen asked.

House shook his head. "Hell, no. I'm just _considering_ it. Nothing decided yet. I know she wants me to, so once I tell her, she'd get all _happy_." He made it sound like a negative quality. "You, of course, think I should tell her."

"When you're ready to," Jensen said. He opened the door to the outer office, and they walked out together. "Down to more pleasant subjects, I am really looking forward to tomorrow."

House relaxed more than he had at any point in the last few hours, a smile of anticipation playing around his lips. "So am I."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is part one of chapter two. I simply had no more time to write. You'll get the rest of the chapter ASAP.

Thanks to Brighid45 for details on doing the dinner/concert scene in NYC. I've been to the state but never the city myself (though had budget and family issues allowed, I would have loved to go with my favorite chorale to sing at Carnegie Hall about five years ago).

Enjoy more Pain!

(H/C)

"Now remember, Cathy." Jensen's eyes remained firmly on the traffic, already building toward insanity as they approached New York City, but he tossed the words over his shoulder into the back seat. "The little girls don't know about Dr. House's background yet, and they also don't know just how serious that explosion at the racetrack was back in February. _Anything_ you've learned from the news about him is not an appropriate subject tonight."

"Da-ad." Cathy drew it out to two syllables. "I can keep a secret." Her tone had all the offended dignity and responsibility a nearly 11-year-old could muster, but she was practically wiggling with anticipation. "But they know he's Dr. House's father, right?" She hadn't learned that from the media.

"Yes." Jensen smiled, drawing a glare from the adjacent driver, who couldn't see why the traffic slow-down ahead was something to be that thrilled about. "They call him Grandpa Thomas."

"Grandpa Thomas," Cathy repeated. "What does Dr. House call him?"

"Old man," Jensen told her.

Cathy nodded wisely. "I didn't think he'd call him Dad. Not after that . . . other one the news stories were talking about. And I know not to say that in front of the girls. But old man fits. They said he's like 70 or something, so he is one."

"_Cathy._" Melissa, not occupied with driving, turned around to face her daughter. "You don't say things like _that_ to people, either. It's not polite."

"But it's true." Cathy gave another anticipatory squirm, and Jensen started a mental countdown. _Three, two, one . . ._

Right on cue, his daughter asked, "How long 'til we get there?"

"Should be within an hour if we catch the traffic right. As for Dr. House's father, he'll surprise you. He's 75, but he's still very active. He rides his horse all the time, and he walks several miles a day, too."

"So he's not really _old_ old?"

"No, he's not. Hopefully he has a lot of years left." Though Jensen knew, and Thornton certainly knew, how unpredictable life was.

"I'm glad. Dr. House deserves a father."

"Everybody deserves a father," Melissa agreed. "I wish everybody had one."

Cathy looked out the window. She could feel the throbbing energy of the city reaching out to gather them. Within an hour, she'd be meeting Dr. House and the rest of his family, including his actual, genuine father. And after dinner came the music. "Tonight is the best birthday present I've ever had." Her birthday wasn't for a few days yet, but this evening's event was a gift in advance.

Jensen chuckled. "You said that last year. Okay, Melissa, we can return Mozart now. He's been upstaged."

"He's _my_ kitten." Cathy knew he was only teasing, but she couldn't resist rising to the bait. "I still love him, and he isn't quite as crazy as he used to be." She shifted in the seat again as if she had an extra accelerator in the back floorboard that could make a difference on the trip. "But I can't wait to see Dr. House tonight - and his father, too." She once more tried to wrap her mind around Dr. House's father. "Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"Is his father sorry about everything that happened to Dr. House?"

Jensen sighed. He wished that even 10-year-olds could stay innocent of such things, but she had deliberately looked for stories on House once the Chandler crisis had gone public. Besides, she needed to understand, of course, that there were bad people in the world. He and Melissa had tried to explain that to her in juvenile terms years ago, but learning specific examples that applied to someone she knew had been a shock. She was concerned for her friend. "Yes, he's sorry, Cathy. He's a good man. And you do _not_ talk about this in front of Dr. House. Even if his girls aren't with him and especially tonight when they are. Just act normally with everybody, like there's nothing new. We're meeting friends for dinner, like people do all the time, and that's all. Understand?"

"We're trusting you, Cathy," her mother put in, "but we expect you to be on your best behavior tonight."

"Mo-om! I'm not a little kid anymore."

Jensen and Melissa exchanged a brief look, fondness with an icing of wistfulness. No, she wasn't. She was almost 11.

(H/C)

"Do you realize what all this is going to cost?" House grumbled as they approached the front door of the Carnegie Deli. "Parking alone for several hours in midtown is enough to buy another car. Then the meal, tickets, valet service." He paused on that one, reminding himself that they were using valet parking tonight mainly on his behalf. Everybody else would have found a walk of a few blocks in the city refreshing.

"You're a bear!" Rachel said, dissolving into giggles. They had seen a show on TV recently with a bear growling, and Rachel since then pulled out the metaphor any time her father started grousing about something.

"I do _not_ sound like a bear," House insisted. Thomas smiled and tightened his hold on Rachel, who was wiggling in her excitement.

"Sleepy bear," Abby agreed.

Cuddy fought back laughter as she juggled her younger daughter in one arm and a bag containing everything she thought she might need on the other. She ran a quick mental inventory again, dreading the dropped detail. She had a complete change of clothes for both girls, a tie in hopes of getting it onto her husband, a . . .

"Dr. House!" The Jensens were waiting just inside the restaurant, and Cathy all but assaulted him as soon as he walked in. "I'm so glad we're doing this together tonight." She hugged him fiercely, then finally released him, and he saw the interest light in her eyes as she studied Thomas.

"This is my father," he said. It was getting a little easier, though still seemed odd. "Thomas Thornton."

Cuddy took over, her mother's training on complete introductions asserting itself. "Thomas, this is Melissa Jensen and their daughter, Cathy."

"Nice to meet you." Melissa shook hands, as did Jensen. Cathy was still staring at him, lost in the novelty of it, and her mother nudged her into motion. "Let's get a table."

They needed a large one, of course, being a party of eight. As they arranged themselves and got settled, House was struck by a memory of so many nights in the past of walking or motorcycling through a city, whether this one or another, and looking through the windows, seeing people eating, socializing, enjoying themselves as a group. They were a _they_, and he was alone with the glass barrier between, and as much as he had tried to tell himself that finishing the night in some bar with strangers was just as good, he had known that it wasn't.

Now he was on the inside. He was at the big table, not just tolerated there but a part of it. He looked toward the front window, wondering if any lonely passersby out there were privately envying _him_.

Once they were all settled, the menus were opened. Cuddy was glad to see that they did have non-meat options. She considered the girls.

"Pizza!" Rachel requested.

"No," Cuddy said firmly. "You can't have pizza here."

"Maybe," her father said in a conspiratorial whisper that all eight of them heard plainly, "if you eat what Mama wants you to, you can have cheesecake for dessert. They have _awesome_ cheesecake."

"I want cake!" Rachel switched tracks easily enough. Jensen laughed, and Cuddy glared at her husband.

"She doesn't need a whole piece of cheesecake, Greg."

"I know. So I guess I'll have to eat it, minus two bites for the girls. Just one of those sacrifices of fatherhood." Cathy laughed at that one, starting to become capable of sound again, and House turned to Thomas. "You've _got _to try their Reubens, old man."

Thomas smiled at him. "What makes you think I haven't?"

House buried his nose in his menu again. "Yeah, right. I forgot you've been everywhere."

"Not quite everywhere, but I've certainly been on a few trips here. Emily and I did a Broadway vacation several years ago."

"I want music!" Abby demanded. She'd been promised music tonight, music like she'd never heard it before, and everybody was talking about food instead.

"It's coming; I promise," House told her. "We've got to eat first. But then . . ." His whole expression softened. "You are going to _love_ this." Abby's birthday was still more than a month away, and he hadn't mentioned this as a pre birthday gift, but he knew that tonight would be a door opening into a new world for her. Well, he _hoped_ that it would be. But he didn't really think he was wrong, not with this.

With orders taken, they settled down to conversation while waiting. "How are the piano lessons going?" House asked Cathy.

She was still watching Thomas more than any of them, but that question drew her attention back to House. "I'm trying, and it's getting better, but it's too slow. Nothing like you. It just doesn't _work_ the same way for me."

"You have my sympathies, Cathy," Thomas commiserated. "I've often thought that while I wrestle through piano practice."

"You take piano lessons?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes, I do. But I'm not that good at it."

"Trust me, he really _isn't_ that good at it," House agreed.

"You take them _now_?" she asked, making sure she had the picture straight. Thomas nodded. "But you're too old for that."

"_Cathy!_" Her mother was mortified, but Thomas was amused.

"You see, Cathy, I wasted a lot of time. I had a chance at them when I was young, and I didn't really want to spend the time on them. I want to now."

"Because Dr. House plays?" she asked.

"That's part of it. It's also partly that I just love a good challenge, even if I'm not that talented. It gives me something to push myself on. I have always liked music. I remember listening to concerts on the radio as a kid, and I've loved going to them since." He read her expression flawlessly. "Yes, we used to listen to everything on the radio. No TV, no computers, no YouTube."

She started to say something, then looked at her mother and dropped it, apparently another comment on how old this made him. Cuddy stepped into the gap. "Were your father's concerts on the radio, Thomas?"

He looked wistful. "No. He wasn't quite that well known yet. He did hope that someday, he could play Carnegie Hall."

"Your father did concerts?" Cathy asked.

"Yes, he played piano. Now he had it all, talent and determination both." Thomas called up the picture of Timothy Thornton in concert on his cell phone and handed it around the table to her. Jensen couldn't resist another look at it himself, though he'd seen it already.

"Wow." Cathy looked from the picture to House. "He looks like you, Dr. House."

"Technically, I look like him," he pointed out. He checked the old wristwatch, more for the sake of visiting it than of noting the time. His grandfather's watch with his great-grandfather's words. _This is your time, my son._

Their food came at that point, and they settled down to eat with some shuffling and getting organized, of course, with the girls, each of their parents feeding one. Rachel made another request for cake, and Abby still wanted to know how long until the music. House told her it would come after the food was gone, and she accepted that and took a bite from him eagerly. He stuffed down a marvelous mouthful of his own Reuben and looked over at the old man starting on his. Thomas also liked them dry, though he found no fault with pickles.

Jensen checked his own watch, updating the schedule. "We're doing all right. Should make the concert in plenty of time."

Cathy shifted in her seat again, unable to stay completely still thinking about it. "A _real_ pianist."

"This one should be worth hearing," House agreed. "Great program, too. It will be an eye opener for Abby. Rachel, too, but music isn't her thing. We know this is pushing it on the ages." They had already strategized thoroughly concerning the girls. They weren't expecting Rachel to be able to last through tonight. On plenty of other things, Abby would have hit the limits, too, but on this one subject, House thought she'd be spellbound, more apt to throw a fit at being taken out than at sitting there.

"They are pretty young," Melissa agreed.

Cuddy nodded. "We ran them ragged this morning, getting them worn out, and then they had an extra-long nap all afternoon, most of the drive, even."

"No nap!" Rachel insisted with her mouth full. "I wanna see Ember."

"Yes, you'll get to if you're good. We also bribed Rachel with an extra visit to the stables if she's good tonight. And I'm the designated kid-taker-outer when they do get restless. We won't let them disturb the concert."

"That was one of the few things I ever heard Dad get mad about," Thomas remembered. "Kids who became disruptive in concerts, and their parents wouldn't take them out promptly. And Dad loved kids, but he hated having the music interfered with."

"Is Ember your horse?" Cathy asked Thomas.

"Yes." He called up another picture on the cell phone and passed it over.

"She's pretty," Cathy said. She wasn't a horse nut herself, but she could enjoy looking at them.

Melissa, on the other hand, had plenty more background there. Not that she was an equestrian herself, but she had an uncle who had been a racing fanatic and had taken her to several tracks as a girl, and she still enjoyed hitting the OTTB regularly. "Do you go to the races often, Thomas?" she asked.

"Not rabidly, but I've been several times. We went to the Kentucky Derby once," he said. Rachel had started nearly flipping out of her high chair reaching for the phone, wanting to see Ember, and he reclaimed it and let her look.

"What year?" Melissa asked, coming to attention.

"2002. War Emblem."

Jensen shook his head. "I _knew_ this subject would come up tonight sometime when the two of you got together. My wife doesn't ride, but she's definitely a fan of the races."

"I had an uncle who took me to all the New York tracks when I was a kid. I have many fond memories of Saratoga. Belmont, too, but Saratoga just has an atmosphere that's special."

"That it does," Thomas agreed. "It's an experience, not just a race. Who is your favorite racehorse?"

"Secretariat," she said promptly. "I was still a little young to see him live, but I've watched the replays. There will _never_ be another one to match his Belmont."

House saw the light of challenge go on in Thomas' eyes. "He was a true champion. No question at all about that. But actually, I think the greatest Triple Crown winner was Count Fleet. Did you know that his cumulative winning margin for the Triple Crown _matches_ Secretariat's? And he had a career-ending injury in the Belmont, and the jockey tried to pull him up but couldn't. I have to think that cost him at least a little victory margin in that race."

"But Secretariat has the record time," she countered.

"You can't compare tracks and times from the 1940s to the 1970s. So many advances in between there on maintenance and construction. It's a totally different surface. In 1943 particularly, the track was in _lousy_ condition. Middle of the war, and they had gas rationing, so the track maintenance tractors were running the bare minimum, just once a day in the morning, so by the end of the race card, it would really be beaten up. You can watch the video of Count Fleet's Belmont and tell just how bad that track was. It's puffing like a train at every single hoof fall. In fact, a lot of people think the undermaintained track was why he got hurt."

Rachel had started out interested in this horsey conversation but was losing it at this point. "Now I get cake!" she announced as she finished her last bite.

"Now is the music!" Abby corrected.

"Cake first," House told her. "Believe me, Abby, the music will be worth waiting for."

Cuddy shuddered as if the calories in cheesecake could jump off the menu onto her hips. She abstained, but House and Thomas both ordered a slice, as did Jensen. Cathy and Melissa split one - Melissa's idea, not Cathy's. Once it came, the girls each got a small bite and each demanded more, Abby deciding that she could pause for cake after all, even though she still wanted music. House even talked Cuddy into one microbite of his. Thomas talked easily about racehorses with Melissa and about his father the pianist with Cathy, and House sat there quiet for the moment, just watching.

An evening out with friends. He looked once more toward the front door, then back at his group. A moment later, he realized that Jensen was watching him. He scowled, but the psychiatrist only smiled at him, and after a moment, he relaxed again.

"We'd better get going," Jensen said, acting as timekeeper again.

"Is the music now?" Abby asked her father.

"Soon," he promised her. "Coming soon."

Cuddy took the girls through the bathroom before leaving the deli, and Melissa volunteered to help her. Cuddy hadn't missed the shielded longing when the other woman looked at Rachel and Abby. She didn't know why Cathy was an only child, but she knew with a pang of sympathy now that it wasn't by choice.

Cathy went along with them, bubbling over again with anticipation of the concert and with reliving the last hour. She was dutifully keeping off of the forbidden subjects, but just as they exited the ladies restroom, she said to her mother, "Dr. House's father is pretty neat, even if he's so old."

Right outside, the others were waiting for them after a faster journey through the men's, and Cathy all but walked into Thomas as she said it over her shoulder. Jensen flinched, Melissa groaned, and Thomas only laughed. "Old people can still surprise you, Cathy. Remember that."

Together, they left the deli for the short journey to Carnegie Hall.


	3. Chapter 3

Both of the little girls were wide-eyed as they entered Carnegie Hall. Cathy had been there twice before, and she was bouncing more than walking, nearly vibrating with excitement and anticipation. Jensen hid his smile as Cuddy stepped to one side just inside the doors, stopped, and passed Abby to Thomas as she whispered something in her husband's ear. With a martyred expression, House stood as she quickly applied the tie, shielding her actions as much as she could - and really, in the bustle of entry, nobody besides their group noticed.

Once in the concert hall itself, they found their seats, located near an exit and including one on the aisle, per request. The group filed into the row with Cuddy on the outside, positioned for easy escape with a kid when needed.

Rachel and Abby had their own tickets, but of course, they preferred laps instead. Rachel was looking all around the great room, taking in everything, but Abby was focused at once on the stage. "BIG piano!" she said, impressed.

"Very big piano," her father agreed.

"A more big piano than yours."

"It is bigger than mine," House confirmed.

Melissa, further down the row, was still watching them wistfully. Her husband captured her hand and gave it a silent squeeze that conveyed more than words, and she smiled at him reassuringly. "There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Abby's eyes now," she commented. She had followed Abby's NICU course a few years ago through her husband - with the Houses' permission to keep her updated - and she knew that Abby had had problems in that area and had undergone a few laser surgeries.

Cuddy smiled. "No, there doesn't. The doctors have checked them as well as we can this young."

"She is definitely growing," Jensen said. "I hadn't seen her in a couple of months. She's getting taller."

"She's finally caught up on the age charts." Cuddy looked at Abby, then at Rachel in her own lap. Not so many years ago, she would never have believed this was possible.

"It won't be too long until we can formally test her eyes," House said. Wanting to show her off, he pointed to the lighted sign over the nearby door. "What are those letters, Abby?"

She wrenched her eyes off the stage long enough to look. "E, X, I, T," she said. "X-it. Daddy, you need a BIG piano."

House chuckled. "Abby, if I had that one in our house, it would be too much. That's a concert grand. It's made for great big rooms like this one. It overpowers a house."

Rachel had been listening to this while looking around, and now, she had the perfect solution to this difficulty. "Play it here! You can play."

"No, I'm not going to play tonight. We're going to listen."

"But you can play at home after the music?" Abby asked.

House hesitated, trying to find words for what she'd never experienced. "I can play what they're going to play tonight, Abby, but I can't play _all_ of it. See those other instruments? The ones behind, sitting around the chairs. This music has a _lot_ of parts. I can't do all of them and fit it all together like this can. So if I played it, it won't quite sound the same." She looked thoughtful, trying to digest this. "You'll understand in a little bit, once they start and you hear it. The piano is the main thing, but there are a lot of other instruments going on."

"You can play all of it," Rachel stated confidently. She looked around again. "Grandpa Thomas?"

"What is it, Rachel?"

"Ember wanted to come."

House laughed, Cuddy groaned, and the Jensens all smiled at the picture. "No, she didn't, Rachel. Ember wouldn't like this. Too many people. No grass. No room to run."

"She can jump," Rachel suggested. She had seen Ember jump by now, and those rows of chairs on stage looked like perfect obstacles.

"No," Thomas said. "Ember is not coming with us to concerts. But remember, you get to see her tomorrow morning if you're good tonight." Rachel settled back against her mother's chest, thinking of Ember and visibly trying to be good.

"I don't like the music," Abby said, seated on her father's good leg. The members of the orchestra were starting to wander in at random, and the cacophony of various warm-ups or replaying of different difficult passages didn't sound like music to her, much less special music.

"This isn't the music," House promised. "They're just warming up, so they're all doing different things now. When the music is ready to start, it will get really quiet. Then one person will walk out, and they'll all play one note together to make sure they all agree. Then the conductor will walk out with the pianist and everybody will clap. _Then_ we'll have the real music. Just a little longer, Abby."

Rachel wiggled. "Grandpa Thomas, Jet wanted to come."

House grinned. "I can just see him in here."

"He probably wouldn't like the people, either," Thomas said. "Too many of them. He's more used to people than he used to be, but almost none of them like crowds."

"Who's Jet?" Cathy asked.

"That's my kitten."

"I have a kitten, too. Well, he's a cat now, but he still plays like a kitten. I got him for my birthday last year. Hey, Mom, Dad, can you imagine Mozart at a concert?"

Both of her parents plus House groaned, imagining it all too well. "Now _her_ kitten is crazy, old man," House told Thomas. "Not only that, he sounds like a banshee. He's a Siamese. At least Jet is quiet, even if he thinks he's a NASCAT."

"He's enjoying himself out of the splint," Thomas said. "He'll settle down."

"He was hurt?" Cathy asked.

"He had a broken leg when I found him in a parking lot. He's been through two surgeries and a few months of being splinted up, and he finally got all the equipment off about two and a half weeks ago. He's rediscovering his legs."

Rachel giggled. "He falls down. Then jumps up. He _runs_."

House looked down at his bad leg, which Abby was carefully avoiding, not only not sitting on it but being careful not to kick him. An automatic concession from his girls. Unlike Jet, he could never go back to what he once had been. In another month of his rather intense kitten version of physical therapy, nobody would ever know Jet had had a problem unless they were told. Jet himself might even forget it.

House couldn't. No matter what any PM doc or anybody else did, there was never going to be a "good as new" for him, nor a life without daily impact and concessions. There was no treatment that could give him back his original body, unbattered, unstressed, _whole_.

The lights dimmed, and Rachel looked up at them. "They need a light bulb," she suggested.

Her mother smiled. "No, that's just a message to be people to sit down and be quiet. The concert will start soon. Now once the music starts, Rachel, remember that you have to be quiet. Don't talk; just listen. Be good tonight, and you'll see Ember tomorrow."

"Ember," Rachel sighed. She looked over at her little sister. "Abby, too. Be quiet, Abby."

If she heard, Abby didn't bother to reply. Most of the orchestra was in place now, and she sat up alertly, watching for the people to come out and the music to start like her father had predicted.

The lights dimmed further. A hush of anticipation fell over the crowd. The first violinist stepped out to tune the orchestra, and then they all sat, waiting.

The conductor and the pianist, a well-known artist from overseas, stepped out from the wings, and the audience applauded, Rachel joining in and smacking her hands together with enthusiasm. They bowed to the room, and then the pianist took his place and the conductor mounted his box and raised his baton.

The music began.

House watched Abby, recording this, absorbing it, wanting to remember it for the future. She was looking at the pianist, but the music started with the clarinet's sassy run, launching the orchestra into _Rhapsody in Blue_. Abby looked around at first, trying to pick out which instrument was playing, but too soon, all of them were, and she quickly lost the question, caught up in the current of the river of sound. She sat up straight on her father's lap, not leaning back against him, absorbing all the different parts making a whole that none of them could have expressed fully alone.

Then the pianist began. Her eyes were locked on him through the rest of it, watching his flying fingers, both hearing and seeing the dance of the music, playful and lyrical in turn. She never made a sound.

Rachel lasted ten minutes. She was watching all the instruments in turn and especially seemed impressed with the visible movement ones like the strings and the drums, but it wore off ultimately and just became sitting still in a big room in the dark. She began to squirm, and they were just starting what House always jokingly thought of as the "airline theme" when she asked a few soft questions - not about the music; one House caught was whether Jet would like to chase those moving bows on the violins - and Cuddy picked her up and slipped out.

Abby never noticed her sister leave. She sat there totally locked into the piece, the sweeping lyricism of the "airline theme," the rhythmic friskiness of the line that wove underneath the soaring melody, first with orchestra, then echoed by piano. House watched her face, not the pianist himself, though he was listening as alertly as she was. The momentum of the piece carried it through a return expression of the opening melody, and then it ended on the "airline theme."

There was silence for just a second after it stopped, and then the audience broke out in vigorous applause. Abby didn't clap or even move until her father picked up her hands inside his, bringing them together. "Wow," she said softly, and House was reminded of Rachel's reverent tone as she said "Ember" that first day out at the stable.

House leaned up close to her as there was a momentary break while the pianist stood and left the stage along with the conductor. "We'll get more piano later. This next piece is a picture of a big city. Remember the city driving in, all the people, all the traffic? The music tells that story if you listen."

The conductor returned alone, and the low buzz of whispered conversation across the crowd died. Then, continuing the Gershwin theme of the first half, the orchestra set off into _An American in Paris_. Abby was quiet and attentive, even without the piano, and House could see her trying to pick out the city and the traffic, which in that piece wasn't hard. Paris might as well have been New York in her experience. House had picked this concert carefully, thinking that all three pieces on the program had enough snap and frisk to be more child friendly than a lot of classical music, but he still had wondered how she would respond to a piece with no piano, if the spell would be broken. No, she was still captive.

He continued watching his daughter more than the stage. Looking over once at Thomas, on his left, he saw that the old man was watching her, too, with an expression that was so clearly love and appreciation that House had to turn away again. He still was uncomfortable with the purity of unconditional love. No hidden meanings. No two-faced message, one public and the other hidden thoughts or, even worse, anticipating private moments later.

Thomas simply loved his granddaughters. And his son.

The piece ended, and Abby joined everybody in applauding that time, but she stopped as the lights came up and people began to leave the hall. She turned back to her father, disappointed. "I want more music!" she insisted. A few patrons walking out through the row in front of them heard her and looked with a smile, then did a double take as the age registered. Abby might finally be a normal sized two-year-old, nearly three, but nobody could possibly have placed her as much older than that.

"There's more," House assured her. "This is the intermission. It gives us a break."

"I don't want a break," she objected.

"But the orchestra does. So does the pianist. Playing music like that is hard, Abby. Let them rest for a few minutes and catch their breaths, and then we'll have more piano in the second part. Now, let's go see if we can find Mama."

Abby for the first time realized that her sister and mother were missing. House gathered his cane and then looked down at his daughter in his lap. There was no way he could stand up out of the seat with her along for the ride. Thomas reached over to pick up his granddaughter, and House heaved himself to his feet with a sigh.

Cathy came up alongside him as they filed out, asking a few questions about the music. Cuddy and Rachel were indeed waiting right outside, and the party headed for the restrooms. She came up close beside her husband on the way, and he whispered to her, "I wish you could have seen that. She was mesmerized."

"I saw enough. Rachel lasted longer than I thought she would."

"Me, too."

"What about the second half?"

House considered. "Let's all be there for the beginning, at least. This piece starts with a bang, doesn't waste any time getting big and impressive. I think she'd be interested for a little while."

The trip through the bathroom was complicated by the girls, of course, but still managed to be accomplished in time. The group was stopped at a water fountain when the lights dimmed in warning. "Take a drink now if you want one, Rachel," Cuddy said firmly. The others already had, but Rachel loved playing in water fountains, always trying to shoot herself in the face or eye, and her mother was being a spoilsport tonight and refusing to let her. She finally took a few swallows of water, and they returned to the auditorium. The lights went out just as they were settling into their seats.

Abby was looking toward the wings, her father noted, watching for the pianist again. Here he came with the conductor. The audience clapped, the two bowed, and then they took their respective places.

Tschaikovsky's _First Piano Concerto_ started out large, as House had said, and went on from there. Abby was enthralled from the first note. House this time spent a little while watching Rachel. She was clearly impressed by the music, but the novelty wore off on her, and before many minutes, she was looking around the hall and starting to squirm. The first movement of the concerto was by far the longest, and she didn't make it all the way through, but at least she was quiet, and a dream Cuddy had had last night of Rachel standing up on her lap and shouting, "Yay!" at the top of her voice at some dramatic percussion moment was unfulfilled. Mother and daughter left.

House looked over at Thomas. The old man was watching the pianist at the moment, not his granddaughter, and there was a shimmer in his eyes in the dim light. House knew that his grandfather had played this concerto, too, even though no recording of that survived, and he wondered if Thomas was seeing him again in memory, the curtain of the past stripped away.

Abby was still totally wrapped up in the music and perfectly still on his lap. He didn't think she would have noticed fireworks going off overhead. Slowly, the spell of the concerto began to pull House into his own thread of memory, and he stopped watching his family enjoy the music and surrendered to the past, one of the positive moments of it.

His own first concert. He remembered it just like yesterday. He had been older than Abby, and it had been a different concerto, but he would never forget that night. It was the first time in his life that, through the music, he had realized that there was more, a world of experience and possibility beyond the tightly spaced bars of his personal cage. Life went on _out there_ somewhere, better life, and maybe, just maybe, it was a road he could find, a journey he could take himself. But regardless of whether he ended up there or not, the mere knowledge that there was something in existence as different and whole and glorious as that music, where dissonances still existed but then resolved into harmonies, had been a candle of hope for the young, trapped boy. There was more.

Then the same concerto as that first concert heard again the night of his first real date with Cuddy. The same world of possibility had been right there in the music, something more, something greater. Maybe something that they could succeed at together, not without problems but with tensions come to and resolved in turn and the music continuing past them. Maybe a relationship with her really would work.

Tonight, wrapped up in the music, he sensed that same world of possibility, of _more_ that was available out there, maybe even that he might find himself if he worked at it hard enough. One hand gently touched his leg, not massaging, just considering.

He would never be what he once was physically. That much was correct. But maybe there were options out there that were better, as Jensen had said. Not just less harmful than the Vicodin, but actually better.

The music ended, and the concert hall erupted in applause. To House's surprise, he realized that the third movement had concluded. The concert was over.

Almost. After leaving and returning three times, the pianist agreed to an encore. He played _Flight of the Bumblebee_ alone, and Abby sat with a smile on her father's lap, enjoying something that she knew. As the music stopped and the lights came up, she turned to her father. "You play Bee better!" she told him.

Thomas laughed. "Pretty close contest, at least," he said. "But I think I agree with you, Abby."

As they exited the seats, Cathy hurried up beside her friend. "You play that last piece?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Would you come play it for me sometime? Come over on a Friday. It's fast; it wouldn't take you much time."

She was irresistible, and as so often when looking at her, House wondered if his daughters would be like this at her age. "Okay, Cathy. But you have to keep Mozart quiet. I don't want a duet with him."

She looked uncertain. "I'll do my best," she replied. "Will you really come play it?"

"Yes. Next Friday; I promise. Happy now?"

"Thank you, Dr. House," Melissa said.

Farewells took a few minutes, but nobody lingered too long. It was now approaching 10:00; they all had a long drive back, and the little girls, though still awake, were looking sleepy now that the adrenaline was wearing off. Once the Houses' car was retrieved and the girls buckled into their seats, the families split. Until they left the city, which wasn't sleepy at all yet, House was focused on his driving and the traffic, but once out onto the highway, his mind wandered back to the new Scottish doctor in Philadelphia. What would he say if House made an appointment?

The girls were out like lights almost at once, and Cuddy in the back seat and Thomas in front talked softly as the miles clicked away toward home beneath the tires.

"You're awfully quiet, Greg," Cuddy commented finally.

"Just thinking," he replied.


	4. Chapter 4

Rachel got her reward for good behavior the next morning, a nice long visit to the stable, though she never really thought any of them were long enough. After greeting and "talking" with Ember - Rachel had the whinny cue spot down perfectly now - and watching Thomas ride, she even got to help groom after he unsaddled the mare. House held her up so she could reach the tall horse. Also, though nobody mentioned it directly, so she would run less risk of getting stepped on. Thomas still always kept one hand on the halter, directly controlling the horse, though she knew Rachel by now.

Cuddy stood back and watched, keeping one eye on Abby, who was kneeling next to her mother and petting barn cats. The fear was getting better through stubborn effort, but Cuddy still had to work actively at pushing away worst case scenarios. "Look at your daughter's face." Patterson's voice spoke in her memory. "See the joy there. Thomas is careful. Yes, there's still risk, but life without risk is also life without joy. Let Rachel follow her passion."

Good advice but annoyingly hard to apply, as so much good advice was. Cuddy just hoped that she could keep it together after Rachel's birthday in December. The youngest the stable would start lessons for children was four, and her parents had agreed that Rachel could start riding then, provided that she listened to Marilyn, followed instructions, and acted safely. A personal pony was inevitable by this point, Cuddy knew, but that wouldn't come for at least a year or so. Marilyn heartily agreed; lessons first before horse ownership, and Rachel would be much better prepared for and matched to the eventual pony that way. But Thomas was also planning a surprise as a Christmas present for his granddaughter, and Cuddy's heart sped up at the thought ever since two weeks ago when her husband and her father-in-law had proposed it to her. No doubt they'd been plotting privately for a while before that, though House wouldn't spring something like that on her cold, not involving their children.

She shifted uneasily and forced herself to watch Rachel's face. The joy was there. Thomas' smile watching her was warming, too. Thomas was enjoying his new family so much. Even Abby was fully a fan of his by now, and he'd had Rachel won over since Lexington. As for House, the gains were slow but definite. Thomas and his son had lunch together every Thursday now, and of course, they all saw each other several times a week as well, though he was careful to leave them some space. Cuddy herself was closer to him than ever, settling contentedly into something that she'd never realized she missed. They were good for him, too. Thomas looked younger than 75, vibrantly healthy, and with an inner peace and a sparkling sense of humor that had been far removed that first evening over a year ago when he'd come forward in the court room to face his son.

His son. Cuddy looked at House. He, too, was totally healed from the explosion now, and his inner peace quotient was also higher these days, even if he would have resisted admitting it outright. But something was bothering him. He had been _thinking_ more than usual the last week, his ever-active mind spinning on some personal differential. She was still allowing him space to come to her, though if this went on for much longer, she would prod him a little, trying to remind him that they were partners and that she was there. He'd been particularly silent last night on the drive back, and Cuddy knew that Thomas had noticed as much as she had.

Cuddy watched him watching his daughter, with that softening of his features when the age-old defenses slipped a little. It was more frequent now than formerly, though she thought he would always be shielded. At that moment, there came the briefest flicker, quickly suppressed, of something else in his eyes, something she knew well. _Pain_. The bite of his leg had managed to climb to the top of his thoughts, and he shifted his weight a little.

Rachel noticed. The brush stilled partway through a stroke. "_Down_, Daddy."

House scowled, all of his pleasant mood of a few seconds ago evaporating. He knew why she was asking. "You aren't done with this side yet, Rachel. You were going to do this one and let him brush the other."

She wiggled, unintentionally making the strain on his leg a little worse in her insistence on making it better. "But it's hell leg day. Down!"

House really dodged there. "I'm _fine_," he snapped. She looked a little startled at the tone, and he sighed. "I'm sorry, Rachel."

Rachel smiled and promptly gave him a hug. "I'm sorry, too."

Thomas came around Ember to their side. "I can finish her up, Rachel," he said. She extended her arms, and he took her from his son, giving her a tight hug and whispering something in her ear that made her smile. Then he stepped back and set his granddaughter down a few feet clear of the horse. "You know, Lisa, she's pretty used to Rachel by now. Aren't you, girl?" He tapped the mare's neck, and Ember whinnied on cue. Thomas fished out a mini carrot and gave it to her.

Rachel perked up, following this conversation with interest. "So I can ride Ember? Yay!" It was a "stable-voice" yay, whispered. The rules of the barn were ingrained thoroughly by now. She looked up at her mother with an impish grin.

Cuddy captured her older daughter's hand firmly. "You are _not_ going to ride Ember, and you know it. We've covered this before. I don't care how used to you she is."

"No, Rachel," Thomas said, backing up Cuddy. "Ember is too big for you and isn't a kid's horse. You can't ride her. But what I was thinking of, Lisa, is just with brushing her a little, I could hold Rachel. There's really no need to have me keep a hold of the halter at this point. If Ember did jump, she'd still knock into me first, not Rachel."

Cuddy tensed up. This was moving into new territory, and she wasn't sure she was ready. It was so _comforting _to know that Thomas always had hold of the horse whenever Rachel was close. But . . . she glanced at her husband, trying to make it subtle, and met his eyes on her in full glare.

"Just go ahead and say it," he growled. "Everybody knows you're thinking it. Even _she's_ thinking it." Without waiting for confirmation of what they all were thinking, he turned and stalk-limped up the barn aisle. Abby scampered after him, and Cuddy let her go, though watched closely. Her younger daughter caught her father easily and wasn't two feet behind him most of the aisle, and there weren't any horses in the walkway at the moment.

Rachel looked after her father with concern. "Is Daddy all right?"

Cuddy picked her up. Rachel was just a few months away from four, and even her mother was aware of the growing difficulty of the action, of the vast difference between her energetic, growing daughter and that little baby it seemed she had only held yesterday. And she had two good legs. She knew picking them up had been getting progressively harder for her husband, but the girls themselves were starting to notice now. Abby, too, had asked before to get down when his leg was hurting worse. "He's just hurting, Rachel. I'm glad you noticed that and stopped the grooming. That was very nice of you, and I'm proud of you."

Rachel settled into her mother's arms. "Daddy needs to take the med'cine. That stops hell leg day. And pizza," she added as an afterthought.

Cuddy's and Thomas' eyes met over her head, and their look was serious in spite of her final two words. "I'd better finish getting Ember put away," Thomas said. "We have been here a long time this morning."

Outside the barn, House stopped and turned around to face his almost 3-year-old shadow. "You okay, Daddy?" Abby asked.

"I'm fine," he repeated. She wasn't buying it. Rachel wasn't as often these days, either. Damn it. "I'll be okay."

"Take med'cine," Abby told him.

"I will, soon as it's time to." He looked at Timothy Thornton's old watch and was startled to see how late it really was. It was almost lunch time. No wonder his leg thought he'd been on it too long, though it was picking up Rachel and holding her for a few minutes while standing there that had been the final insult.

And even Abby, the younger and smaller one, was now growing. He picked her up abruptly, just to prove to himself that he could, feeling out the approaching limit, testing.

Abby returned his hug, then pushed away. "Down, Daddy." He reluctantly set her back down. "Daddy?"

"What is it, Abby?"

"Why are you mad?"

He sighed. "I'm not mad at you girls."

She tossed her head impatiently. "I _know_ that," she said, sounding so much like a miniature version of him at that moment that he had to grin, and the edges of the mental pain, if not the ache in his leg, lessened. "Why?"

Abby on a "why" question was like a bloodhound on a trail. He sometimes tried to dodge, sometimes even deliberately would string her along just to tease her, but she usually wound up with some version of an answer, just by persistence. "I wish . . ." he started, then stopped, weighing phrases. "Sometimes, I want to be like I used to be. And I'm not. And that makes me mad."

"Like Rachel's movie?" The old converted film of his lacrosse game had been watched so often by now, usually at Rachel's request, that Abby called it Rachel's movie. Rachel never tired of seeing her young father on the screen and then demonstrating later in the back yard how she could "run like you."

"Yes."

Abby shook her head and gave his good leg a hug. "Don't be mad," she said. "Me and Rachel love you _now._"

House blinked back tears. "I love you girls, too," he said.

Still, what would they think of detox? As he had told Jensen, there wasn't any way to conceal it, not at their present ages. Inpatient, he would be gone for several days, and they would insist on visiting to be reassured that he hadn't died - and they would see it. Outpatient, they would see it anyway.

But it was for them, for all of them, that he knew he needed to get off the Vicodin.

Abby tugged at his hand, pulling him toward Cuddy's car. "Sit down, Daddy. You help hell leg day."

"Probably a good idea," he admitted. "We'll wait for the others out here. Then we'll all go to lunch." He opened the door, lifted her in, and then climbed in himself, and Abby sat down in the passenger's front to face him with a little defiant tilt of her head that told him that she was appreciating the freedom from her car seat, even though the car wasn't moving. When the others joined them ten minutes later, they were talking about last night's concert.

(H/C)

When Cuddy finished her final check on the girls that night and came into the bedroom, her husband was already in sleep clothes and in bed but was sitting up against the headboard, obviously waiting. She studied him for a moment, then walked over and climbed in next to him. "Go ahead and get ready," he insisted.

Cuddy fought back a sigh and got out again, changing to her nightgown. She knew he was finally going to talk to her, but he was also enjoying stalling a little now that _she_ knew he was going to talk to her. Of course, he also was enjoying the show as she changed clothes. He always had been great at multitasking.

Finally ready, she got back in bed next to him. Belle jumped up onto the foot and sat at attention, ears alert, like a third member of the discussion. "I've been thinking," House started, then stalled.

"I'd figured that much out several days ago, Greg. What are you thinking about?"

He looked at her, then looked away, testing out which way was easier to take the jump. Somewhat to his surprise, facing her fully seemed a little less exposed. "I've maxed out the PT. He agrees on that. We've gone as far as we can go that route."

Cuddy longed to embrace him, to comfort him on that difficult realization, but she held back, sensing more. "I . . . wish it had worked better, Greg, but I know you tried."

His lips quirked. "You deliberately didn't say sorry. Don't want to distract me; is that it? Well, I just said it." He reached out to claim her for a long, satisfying kiss. After they finally parted, he looked at her again, then visibly pushed himself on. "There's a new pain doc who set up in Philly this summer."

Cuddy stared. "You're thinking of making an appointment." She was afraid to hope, but there was a new determination in his eyes tonight, and for the first time ever between them, _he_ was the one suggesting it, not her.

"Yeah. He's not a _new_ one, of course. Really well thought of. He's just new to this country. Maybe there's something better out there that he knows of than the Vicodin."

Cuddy moved closer again, putting her arm around him. She didn't want to break the conversation, but she needed to let him _feel_ her approval, warm and physical and real. "I'm proud of you, Greg. And I know you're doing this for us, even though you ought to be doing it for you." He ought to have done it for himself years ago, but she didn't point that out. "The Vicodin isn't working as well anymore, is it?"

He looked away then, down at the bed, and met Belle's intent golden eyes, nearly as interested as Cuddy's. Turning away from both of them, he studied the far wall. "I've . . . tried to cut it down some lately. Not taking as much. I can't take it any lower than now. Don't blame Wilson for not telling you; he doesn't know, either. I didn't change the refills, just took less. Flushed the extras. I didn't want him caring and asking questions all over the place. But even taking less now, LFTs aren't any better than last year. I need to get off this."

Cuddy closed her eyes for a moment. "I wish you'd told me, Greg. I could have supported you. But you need pain relief, too. I've even thought before you needed something _stronger_ than Vicodin. Or along with it. Or something."

"You used to think I was just an addict," he pointed out. "You and Wilson both."

She shook her head. "Greg, I have never thought you were just an addict. Dependence isn't addiction. I didn't realize how bad the pain really was; I'll admit that. But I could never forget what happened to you physically with the infarction. I always knew the problem was real. I was _there_." She shuddered, and it was his turn to reach out to her.

"Don't start in the guilt complex. Stacy signed that consent."

"I know. I don't even _blame_ her anymore."

That caught his attention. "You'd go against my wishes if it happened now again?"

She gave him the honor of a thought-out response. "I don't think so, but it's hypothetical. It being my decision, I mean. I _do_ think that she did wrong, and I hope I'd do better. I'd try to respect what you wanted. But I understand the fear of losing you a lot better than I used to. She has more of my sympathy now than she did back then."

He weighed that, then went on. "I was thinking last night with the music. Once I stopped just watching Abby. You remember our first date, and me telling you about my first concert?"

"I'll never forget that. A world of possibility, you said." She was afraid to draw the extension and push too far, but he took it on himself.

"I was feeling that some last night. Maybe this doc can help."

"I hope so. When are you going to call?"

"Tomorrow, probably."

She wasn't surprised. "I am proud of you for this. Greg?"

"What?"

"About this morning." He tensed up, but she continued. As long as they were actually talking about his leg, which was rare, she might as well bring this up. "It's getting harder for _both _of us to pick the girls up and hold them for a while. I'm feeling it, too."

"You at least aren't a cripple." At that moment, Belle annoyingly walked up the bed and settled down on his leg, still listening but changing from Egyptian statue to portable feline heating pad.

"You aren't, either. Not to them. And you aren't to me or to Thomas. I just wish you'd talk about it a little more. Be honest about how you're feeling with us. They aren't judging you, Greg."

"I didn't mean to snap at Rachel," he said.

"She forgot that almost immediately. She was just worried. Greg, if you come off the Vicodin, unless we replace it at the same time with another narcotic, you're going to go through detox, and they're going to notice that."

"I _know_," he snarled. She didn't respond, just took the tone, absorbing it but not taking it personally, and waited. He sighed. "Sorry." After their kiss, he said, "Abby's birthday is in October. And the old man's, too. September's not a bad month to do something and get it over with. Maybe things would be better by then."

She jumped on the agenda bandwagon immediately, knowing that his offering that angle to her was an unspoken olive branch. "November's not as bad, just Thanksgiving, but December will be nuts. Rachel's birthday, then my parents coming for Hanukkah, then we're having Christmas, too. September really is the most convenient month. But if we have to delay other things, we will. Your health is more important."

"No," he replied firmly. "I am _not_ going to be going through detox on my daughters' birthdays. Unless this guy is a total idiot, which he doesn't seem to be from reputation, surely he can come up with something instead in a month."

She heard the hope behind the thought. He really was considering the possibility of something more effective, not just less harmful. The music last night had done that, and she was overwhelmed again with gratitude that he had had music in his life, one oasis of beauty and wholeness, even in childhood. "I am proud of you," she repeated. "But please, Greg, talk to us. Not just the girls but me, too. Let me in. I know you hate talking about your leg, but I'd like to share it with you. As much as I can," she added hurriedly. "I know I'll never really feel it like you do, but I wish you'd be more open, at least with the family."

"Doesn't change anything," he grumbled. He was hitting the limits on this discussion, she could tell. His endurance on this topic wasn't long.

"It might make you feel a little less alone in it. You _aren't_ alone, Greg."

He moved the cat aside, to Belle's lashing disgust, and reached for his wife. "There are a lot better ways to spend our time in bed than talking about this."

Cuddy yielded to him gladly, but she couldn't quite stop one of her final coherent thoughts from spilling over into words. "Does making love make your leg hurt more, or does it help, Greg? Is there any way that's better than another?" She'd asked the question twice before through the years, and he hadn't answered then.

Sure enough, he locked up on her again. "You're thinking too much." He seized her, and Belle jumped off the bed, yielding the territory to them with her ears flattened and not returning until all was quiet and still much later.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Next chapter is the first appointment. Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

Wilson lined up his shot, centered his balance, and then approached the bowling lane with carefully measured strides.

"Got an appointment with a pain doc tomorrow," House commented casually through a mouthful of chips just as his friend made his last step and started to release the ball.

The ball jumped sideways almost as much as Wilson did and guttered before it was even a quarter of the way down the lane. Wilson stared at House. _"What_ did you say? Tell me that again, without the chips."

House took a moment to leisurely finish chewing and swallowing. "You heard me. Unless you need your ears checked, but I'd say your reaction time was pretty good."

"You have an appointment with pain management?" House nodded. "Who?"

"Ian MacDonald is in the States now."

"I hadn't heard that." Wilson's smile was growing. "I'm glad, House. He's got a top reputation."

"Not an idiot, at least. I thought it wouldn't hurt to have one appointment and talk to him, anyway, sound out any new advancements in the field. It's just a twenty-minute chat session."

That much was true, because House was wedged into the schedule tomorrow. He'd pulled all the considerable strings he had when calling Monday morning and was a little annoyed that they hadn't yielded more results. The secretary refused to add on an extra at the end and extend McDonald's day, and when he'd demanded to speak to the man himself, McDonald had called back a little later and had been polite but still not that flexible himself. He'd sounded quite interested in the case and had heard of House, but he left the office at 5:00, period, and his days were already filling up as referrals had been steady in his few months of practice here.

There was one cancellation tomorrow morning for just a followup, and they'd scheduled that and then a full hour's first appointment the following week on Thursday. McDonald said that would work out fine anyway and that he'd like to read all the records on this complex case, asking House to bring a copy of them Wednesday. He did say there were a few things they could accomplish to get the ball rolling tomorrow that would help save time at the next one, but the big strategy session would be the week after. House with difficulty resisted the impulse simply to hang up with vigor. Instead, he reminded himself why he was doing this and agreed, but it was still annoying.

"So don't expect anything earthshattering to happen tomorrow," he clarified to Wilson now. "Just twenty minutes conversation. But I am going to talk to him at least once."

Wilson's smile didn't diminish. He'd take big steps, small steps, baby steps, _any_ steps. Anything was progress. House had been stubbornly locked up on this alternative for years. "That's wonderful."

"Your turn still," House reminded him.

The ball had returned quite a while before, but Wilson hadn't even noticed. Now, he picked it up from the machine and looked down the lane to the unmarred ten pins. With determination, though still wearing his smile, he considered his shot and started his approach.

"I am going to get off the Vicodin," House said decisively on the last step.

The ball hit the gutter even sooner than the previous time as Wilson spun to face him. "You just said this was only a chat session."

"It is. He's busy, so tomorrow is just a twenty-minute get acquainted. He wouldn't add on an extra complete session and work overtime. The full-length initial consult is next week. But I am going to do it." His tone was firm, but the shielded fear was in his voice beneath, and Wilson heard it.

The ball returned, and Wilson noticed this time and studied the untouched pins with a trace of exasperation, but his smile remained. He came over to sit down next to his friend. "That's fantastic, House. There have to be better options out there. Maybe even something that does a better job for you on the pain."

"Hope so," House said.

"I'm sure Cuddy appreciates it, too." The oncologist didn't even ask if Cuddy knew yet. House would have told her first on something this big, and that position in line was accepted without resentment at this point. Wilson doubted Thornton knew yet, because House was still moving cautiously there, but no doubt his turn at information was coming fairly soon. Still, Wilson couldn't help thinking about exactly what this would mean in the next few weeks. "What about the girls?"

"Haven't told them yet."

"I didn't think you had. Not without the full appointment and a definite timetable first. But they're going to notice if you go through detox."

"I _know_." House was more tense now. He stood up, effectively ending this conversation, and Wilson let him escape. The oncologist was still smiling.

House paused before picking up his ball. He put down the cane and analyzed his balance, steeling himself for those difficult couple of unsupported steps. The leg was worse than a few years ago, as he'd told Jensen. He looked at the ball, then picked it up. Sixteen pounds. His girls weighed more than that now. No matter what he and McDonald did in the next few weeks, he knew his days were numbered on carrying them. He just didn't like that answer. But maybe, off the Vicodin, his life with his family would be prolonged. He even let a daring part of himself hope that the quality of it might be improved if there was something more effective.

For now, he laid the thoughts aside briefly and focused, studying the pins, readying himself. Bowling, too, was getting more difficult. Eventually, there would come a last game, but not tonight, not yet.

When he was already moving, just before he released the ball, Wilson noted, "We think Sandra might be pregnant again."

The ball's release was as straight as it ever was for him. "She is," House said without looking at his friend. Instead, he watched the ball's journey down the lane. It took out five pins, and House gave a satisfied nod. Not bad for him.

(H/C)

Jet charged across the living room with his toy mouse in his mouth, wiped out on a turn, and regained his feet. Zooming up the new cat tree in the corner, he tossed the mouse off with a flick of his head, then stopped poised on the edge of the top platform, eying the jump below. Two or three times, he almost took it and hung fire.

Thomas couldn't help tensing up watching him. He _knew_ that the shattered leg and shoulder were solidly healed. He had even run the final x-rays by Greg for a second opinion. But the thought of the kitten landing full on that front leg still produced a cringe.

Jet gathered his courage and launched into air. He landed a bit splay-footed on the floor but managed to stay upright this time. With a kitten smile, he crouched, wiggled, and jumped again, pouncing on the mouse, then galloped out of the room with his prey seized firmly in his jaws.

Ruth Patterson laughed. "This is even better than the movie."

"It is," Thomas agreed. Both of them had been watching Jet tonight as much as the TV screen. "He's gaining confidence and balance all the time. Umpf!" At his last word, Jet charged around the corner of the couch and jumped up, landing with a thud in Thomas' lap. Jet at eight months was over twice the size of the skinny, terrified, injured kitten Thomas had painstakingly extracted from under a car in the parking lot. He flopped over on his side and purred lustily, looking at Thomas with his large yellow eyes.

"That kitten adores you," Ruth said. "He knows you saved him."

"He's given me plenty of payment for it already," Thomas countered. "He's good company." He felt along the right front leg. It was still thinner than its mate, but there was a new layer of muscle there that hadn't been on the atrophied limb when the splint first came off. "Greg thinks in a month or two, it will be the same size as the other one."

Ruth was on the couch beside him, though they weren't right next to each other. She reached over to scratch Jet's ears, and the kitten turned up the volume. His eyes were drifting shut now, and as he fell asleep, the two returned to watching the movie.

As the credits rolled, Ruth gave a happy sigh. "I love a happy ending."

"It's a woman thing," Thomas said with a trace of his son's tone in his voice. "All of you do. Doesn't matter what the script puts them through in two hours, just as long as it ends well."

She laughed again. "I'll plead guilty to that. You like them yourself, you know. That one had some great shots and scenery, too. I've always wanted to go to Italy."

"I've been there a few times," Thomas filled in. "It's an interesting country. Full of history, but so alive now, too. You've been to France, right?"

"Yes. That's my only trip overseas, years ago. I'm sure you've been there, too. I envy you how much of the world you've seen at times."

"Part of that was for work," Thomas reminded her. "But I did enjoy seeing everything. The variety of it, not just in the scenery but in the people. Where have you always wanted to visit if you could pick one country?"

She considered. "This might sound crazy, but Norway."

She could be surprising at times. It was one reason he enjoyed talking to her. "Why Norway?" he challenged.

"It just always looked so inviting on the map. I lived in Florida for a little while as a girl, and that one and Sweden reminded me some of Florida in shape. But so far away, such a different climate and culture. It was as near the other side of the world as I could imagine at that age."

"Why Norway over Sweden, then?" he asked.

She smiled, acknowledging the irrationality of it. "I just like the sound of the name better for Norway."

He chuckled and shook his head. "_Women_."

"Have you ever been there?"

"I've been to Sweden a few times but only once apparently for Norway."

Her attention sharpened up, pouncing on the word like Jet on his mouse. "Apparently? Don't you remember?"

He looked away. Too hard to meet her vivid green eyes in analysis, at least on this subject. "That was during the year after Emily died."

He heard the sympathy in her voice, but she persisted. "I'm sorry, Thomas. But you still would remember it, wouldn't you?"

"I . . . wasn't functioning that well right then." In fact, he only knew where exactly he had been in those first several months by looking at his passport later. He tried to flip the spotlight. "You ought to understand that. You've been through grief yourself." He felt guilty even as he said it for using her own loss as a conversational dodge.

"Grief, yes. But I don't think I could have forgotten an entire country, even as numb as I was feeling these first days. Were there other countries you don't remember?"

"A few. Don't psychoanalyze me. You're off the job right now, remember?"

She reached out to give his arm a squeeze of apology. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "And I'm not confusing you with a patient; I was just concerned. To go through multiple countries without registering it is more than just grief, Thomas."

"I was tired," he said. "I don't think I'd had more than an hour or two of sleep at a stretch the whole last six months she was alive. I was afraid I'd . . . miss it. Or that she'd need something. So I spent the first five months catching up on sleep."

"While going through customs?" Her tone was gentle and sympathetic, but she stuck to the point, reminding him right then of Emily, who had had similar dogged but polite determination and had similarly only applied it on things she thought truly important.

"_Whatever_ I was doing, I eventually woke up, and I came back," he reminded her.

"Did you at least have somebody trying to be there for you, even if long distance?"

He thought of Lewis. All the messages and emails over months, the first ones not remembered but found later, when he did eventually wake up. That was when he'd started walking again, too, something that he'd let slide during the demands of the late stages of Emily's illness. If the first five months of his flight had been spent asleep, as he thought of it, the last several months had been spent walking. That and slowly responding to Lewis' persistent attempts to reach out to him. "Yes. And this subject is closed for tonight."

She accepted it. "I'm glad you had somebody. So, have you ever been to Australia?"

Later on, after she had left, he settled into bed with a book. He wasn't even two pages in before Jet noisily scrambled up the side of the bed and arrived on top of him. "No toys in bed," Thomas reminded him, removing the mouse and carefully placing it, not tossing it, back onto the floor. "Bed is for sleeping."

Jet looked disappointed but soon forgot it. He settled down next to Thomas and closed his eyes, purring like a helicopter. Thomas read another chapter and then set the book aside and turned out the light. "Good night, Jet," he said, scratching the kitten's ears, and Jet responded with a louder purr. "Good night, Emily."

He lay there in the darkness, his eyes still open, watching shadows on the ceiling and thinking. Jet was asleep far sooner than Thomas was.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This isn't the big strategy session with the pain doc, as House told Wilson, but it's an important step. This story is long and intricate, so we aren't getting anywhere quickly, but things will begin to complicate themselves fairly soon. :) Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

MacDonald had set up in a fairly modern medical office building in Philadelphia. House, caught mentally between fear and daring hope, arrived a little early. He had made the trip alone. Cuddy had come up to his office right before he left to give him a goodbye kiss and wish him well, but she hadn't offered to accompany him. She knew that he needed to do this alone. Still, her parting words of "I'm proud of you" stayed with him clear through the drive.

He parked the old Dodge and pried himself out, taking a moment to eye the car. It was indeed acting up lately, the transmission hanging progressively more and then shifting with a jerk, which jolts didn't help his leg much. Soon, he would have to bite the bullet and pour another big repair bill into the metallic beast. He'd already replaced quite a bit on it, including the transmission multiple times. But he had to keep the old car going.

He had briefly thought of the motorcycle, of taking it today instead, but the day was threatening rain, and he was annoyingly uncertain about riding it in the bigger city traffic. As he had told Jensen, he'd found it unexpectedly difficult at times last Friday in the complicated patterns of the road construction. Besides, House knew that it made his leg hurt worse, though the car in current jolting form was trying its hardest to catch up. He wanted MacDonald's first assessment of him to be as near as possible to baseline.

He looked at his grandfather's watch. Time for a leg stretch first, and it wasn't raining yet, so he limped slowly clear along the sidewalk in front of the building, then turned and came back, working out his post-trip kinks.

The watch. He fingered it again. If he proceeded with this course, he would have to tell the old man, and that conversation was dreaded almost as much as talking to the girls. The last few months of slow warming through the summer had helped him to start to relax a fraction more, but there was still the buried fear of disappointment, of what would happen when he let the old man down. Still, House had to admit that Thomas wasn't bad to have around, and both girls were totally sold on him at this point.

His thoughts had carried him back to the entrance nearest his car, and he went in. MacDonald was on the third floor, the secretary had said. He walked over to the elevator. The button had already been pushed by the woman who was waiting there, an elderly woman in a wheelchair, and House was startled to see the open envy in her eyes as she looked briefly at his cane before making herself turn away with a droop of her shoulders. No canes in her future, he diagnosed.

The elevator opened, and two people got off. She rolled in. He limped after her, and another man followed them. Now that one, House thought, automatically sizing him up, was a prime example of Busy and Impatient Patient. Whatever appointment he was heading for was a thoroughly resented interruption of his day.

House was the only passenger to depart at three, and he found MacDonald's office right across from the elevator as advertised. A small suite fit in between two larger, multi-doc units, but MacDonald wouldn't need much space. House studied the words on the glass door. Pain Management.

Management. The word itself acknowledged chronic conditions, the fact that a cure probably wasn't in the cards for the patients visiting this office.

_"I'm proud of you."_ It was Cuddy's voice with him in memory, not John's. He raised his hand and pulled open the door.

The secretary recognized him from the news, he could tell, but she discreetly waited for him to offer his name at check-in. She handed him the ubiquitous medical clipboard and information form, and he settled down in a chair. Only one other patient was waiting here, probably two back in the exam rooms, one to be with the doctor and one as a spare. No backlog, despite it being late morning by now. MacDonald had said he was busy, which House well believed, but he was apparently efficient, too.

House jotted down the answers, basic personal data he could have filled in in his sleep. None of them were the important questions. Well, hopefully he'd get to a few of those soon with the man in person. He'd never met MacDonald, though he'd read several articles by him and knew of his reputation. The man attracted him by apparently _not_ having a formulaic approach, unlike that first one-size-fits-all idiot he'd seen years ago. No, MacDonald tempered the options to the patients, not vice versa, and he seemed always ready to consider looking further, even unusually, if something wasn't working well.

One patient came out of the door to the inner sanctum, and the nurse called the one in the waiting room back as a replacement. It shouldn't be long now. House checked the old watch again and fiddled with the pen, having finished the form.

Another appointment ended. Twenty minutes on the nose, House noted. Of course, these were established patients for quick followups. He was the anomaly this morning.

"Dr. House?" The nurse called him. He heaved himself to his feet, reshouldered his back pack full of his records, and followed her through the little door.

Weight and vitals, the standard intro, and then she took the clipboard and left him in the exam room. He sat there trying not to remember how many doctors he had seen in his life. Even before the infarction, going back into childhood, there had been a whole procession. None of those early ones had connected the dots. Seeking a distraction for his thoughts, he looked for a magazine and found, instead, a small jigsaw puzzle on the corner counter. He pulled his chair over and went to work. Not that difficult, only about 100 pieces, but it was something and refreshingly unconventional.

A brisk tap on the door, and MacDonald entered the room. He was in his 40s with red hair, a stocky but not overweight frame, and piercing green eyes. "Dr. House," he said with a classic brogue. "I'm glad to meet you. I've heard of your reputation." He stopped a few steps away from his seated patient. "Let's take a walk."

House blinked. "What?"

MacDonald waved a hand toward the door. "Let's take a short walk. Just down the hall and back."

He wanted to see him move, House realized. He wasn't satisfied with just records. Fair enough. House came to his feet, aware of the analysis of every muscle twitch. MacDonald waved him through the door ahead of him, and together, they walked down the hall to the door to the waiting room and then back. House, painfully aware of the limp, tried focusing on the other man to distract himself at first, but then he unexpectedly felt his attention sharpening.

MacDonald's steps were not quite even, either. Far more subtle than House's own disability, but it was there when you listened, the rhythm of footfalls just a bit labored. House's mind launched into full gallop. Legs? No, he wasn't favoring either one. It was the faintest hesitation with the whole process of walking, not a limp. Back. Lower back. The man was a bit stiff, now that he looked. Much worse than Wilson's if this was his baseline, though if he wore a barometer as House did, this might not be a typical day.

House was so busy thinking that he forgot to be self conscious for the whole last half of their stroll, and they arrived back at the exam room sooner than he had expected. He sat back down in one chair, ignoring the exam table, and MacDonald pulled the other out a little to face him and sat down himself - definitely lower back. He saw the thought on House's face and pushed on, not offended by the curiosity but not having time for it. "So you had an infarction."

"Yes." House unzipped the back pack and offered his impressively thick file. MacDonald had specified that he would prefer all records available, even ones that were on the surface irrelevant. "There's a green sticky tab at the original op note."

"Ah, thank you. I'll look these over in detail before next week, but just now . . ." He skimmed through the op report rapidly, then looked up directly at the leg, fitting the words to it. "Never had any further clots?"

"No."

"Why do you use your cane in your right hand?"

The question caught House by surprise. He'd been expecting _you should use it in the other_, the question everybody asked over the years, not a simple _why _that honestly wanted an answer. "It . . . works better for me that way." Because it was unconventional, he told himself. He couldn't really remember exactly how that habit had started in the days of PT, but it was well entrenched now.

MacDonald accepted the answer with a smile that let House know he realized it was incomplete. "What medications do you take now? All of them, not just for pain."

"Vicodin. I've been trying to cut that down as far as I can, and I've hit a barrier with it. Can't get it lower and be functional. But the LFTs are still a little high and haven't improved over a year ago. Chem panel from last week is the top page in that chart."

MacDonald turned the chart to the beginning and absorbed the lab numbers. "How much Vicodin right now, at the farthest cut dose?"

"One to two every six hours. More often two, but I try for one when I think I could stand it." Those numbers had been a hard-fought victory for House, though his leg would have disagreed that it was a victory. But he _knew_ how bad the stuff was long term. "I can still think on Vicodin," he added quickly. "That's why I've used that all these years. I _have_ tried other drugs. They're all either too strong or not strong enough, but Vicodin lets me still work. Whatever we do, I've got to have a clear mind."

"Of course," MacDonald agreed. "You have to be able to think. And to work. I realize how important that would be to you. What other meds?"

"Voltaren 75 mg twice a day. That's fairly new, but it's replaced 2400 mg a day of ibuprofen, and it's doing a better job of it."

MacDonald consulted the chart again. "Kidney functions look good."

"That's an improvement. They were getting a little high on the ibuprofen."

"Have you ever had any GI issues with high-dose NSAIDs?"

"Not as long as I only take them with food. I did get off track on that once, got busy on a case, and it was affecting me then. I'm also on omeprazole just as a precaution." MacDonald nodded. "That's it for constant dosing. For p.r.n. drugs, there's zolpidem, just on the nights I can't get to sleep." There was a trace of pride in his voice there. No longer was the sleeping pill an every-night occurrence. He only took it if he had been trying to get to sleep for more than 30 minutes unsuccessfully.

"How often?"

"Maybe once or twice a week, no more now. Ativan. Maybe once every two weeks on that for an average." That, too, was less.

"Does the Ativan affect you mentally?" MacDonald asked. "We'll assume that the zolpidem makes you sleepy."

The other man was trying to make a mild joke, but House was too tense at the moment to appreciate it. "At the dose I take, 0.5, Ativan barely knocks the edges off. Revving it up enough, yes, it does. I took 2 mg once as an emergency antispasmodic, and that definitely had me feeling sedated. Didn't knock me out, but I was drugged."

MacDonald made a note to himself. "What else are you on."

House sighed. He'd left the bigger guns for the leg last. "Flexeril. I only use that on bad days, maybe twice a week. That one doesn't hit me mentally."

"Did you take it today?" MacDonald asked.

"Had one this morning. We've got a weather front coming in," House added quickly in excuse. "Then there's diazepam injectable. That's the best thing we've ever found for spasms. It does have a slight sedating effect but not too bad. And morphine." He sighed again. "I _only_ use that as a last resort. Definitely hits my mind, especially the sustained release. I can't work on it."

"Those are all the current meds?"

"Yes."

MacDonald made another note to himself. "You've mentioned spasms. What's the character of your different pains?"

"Spasms when I've strained it, or sometimes just for the hell of it if the damned leg gets in a mood. There is some neuropathic pain occasionally with burning and tingling. Then there's muscular and mechanical pain, and that's pretty much all the time."

"Have you ever taken anything for the neuropathic pain?"

House stiffened up. "I tried gabapentin once. Did nothing for me, and I'll never take it again. Scratch that one off the list."

"Did you have a negative reaction to it?" MacDonald asked.

"No. But I will _not_ take it. It doesn't work."

MacDonald shrugged. "If it doesn't do anything for you, there's no need to take it, especially with the clot risk." House was impressed. Many doctors weren't aware of that entry far, far down on the list of possible side effects. "Have you ever tried bracing?"

"It's too sensitive. Can't stand any kind of pressure or binding there." That did remind him of something, though. "I do use those sticky heat patches sometimes. Not on the scar itself but just around the edges. They help a little."

"Good idea. What about bracing on your foot or knee?"

House hadn't mentioned that his right foot and knee hurt. "Haven't tried anything except for the thigh."

MacDonald made another note. "Dr. House, over the course of the last week, what would you say has been your average pain rating?"

House took a moment to calculate. "6," he replied. He really did have the Vicodin trimmed as far as he possibly could, and the damn leg had made its vote clear about the decrease.

MacDonald didn't react, simply jotting it down. "What is the _best_ you can remember from the last week?"

"3." In the hot tub with Cuddy. Which reminded him of that. "Hot tubs. I have one at home. That really helps."

"Wonderful invention," MacDonald agreed. "What's the worst you've had this last week?"

"9. Had to use diazepam and morphine shots that night. There was a big storm, and I'd been on my feet more than usual that day, too. It seized up once I stopped." He felt himself getting defensive again, even though he knew the man must have heard similar stories often.

"At the very worst times, how bad is it?"

"10." House looked down at his thigh as if he could see through the jeans to the gaping hole beneath. "I've come close to V fib a few times," he added to back up the claim.

"I believe you. Obviously, even when all I've read is the initial op note, you would have chronic, serious physiological pain. Besides, the answer 10 is telling. A lot of people overshoot and try to give me a 22 or something. Anybody who calmly lists that they have a 10 on occasion without trying to grandstand it almost certainly is being accurate." MacDonald looked at his own watch. "We're almost out of time for today, but one more thing first. I'd like to look at your shoes."

House glared at him. Shoes were difficult for him to take on and off, nor could he pick up the leg far enough to offer a full inspection while he was still wearing them. MacDonald was unyielding, just waiting patiently while looking at them. Slowly, House untied his tennis shoes, right, then left, and offered them.

MacDonald studied the shoes thoroughly, comparing the soles, even examining the wear around the uppers and along the inside. Without comment, he handed them back. "We'll have a lot more time next week and can set some plans then. Meanwhile, I'll read through your records. Couple of assignments for you. When was the last MRI of that leg?"

"Year and a half ago," House said.

"I want a current one for comparison. I also want you to get an EKG." House had expected that. A few drugs they might consider, in particular methadone, did not mix well with certain heart tracings. "And finally, I want you to get a notebook and keep it with you. Keep close track of the next week."

"A pain diary," House grumbled, retying his shoes. He'd expected that one, too, but he didn't like the idea of taking notes all the time, even if just for a week.

"Not just a pain diary. Definitely pain ratings, every time you think of it. But I also want to know when you eat, when you sleep, and when you work." That request wasn't standard, and MacDonald read House's reaction. "A lot of things can affect pain, Dr. House. More than we realize at times. And if there _is_ a specific aggravating or alleviating factor you recognize, note that down along with the pain rating of the moment. Things like a storm or like your hot tub. Anything you can think of. The more detail you give, and the more honest you are, the more I can help you. That's as much as we have time for today, but I do think we can definitely make some improvements for you." He stood up and held out his hand, and House shook it, wishing as always that people could come up with a different greeting/farewell. Maybe that was why he used his cane in his right hand, he thought, looking at it propped against the chair. It was a great handshake excuse.

House came to his feet, again aware of his own stiffness in arising, again aware of MacDonald's a moment ago on the same movement. "Just out of curiosity," he said, "what's wrong with your back?"

The green eyes weren't offended, simply shielded. "If that ever becomes relevant to this case, I'll tell you then. Goodbye for now, Dr. House."


	7. Chapter 7

"Dr. Cuddy, your father-in-law is here," the secretary announced.

"Thank you." Cuddy stood up and symbolically and literally distanced herself from the administrative paperwork on her desk. She was smiling as she crossed the office to the door, mostly in fond anticipation, but she also had caught the interest beneath her secretary's voice, carefully stomped down in hopes of hiding it. Like most of PPTH, the woman was fascinated by House's father, and like most of PPTH, she had the good sense to downplay that and just act as usual. According to the grapevine, the jury was still out whose wrath employees were more afraid of invoking by making a big deal of this, Cuddy's or House's.

Cuddy opened the door. "Thomas. Come on in." He entered, and she shut the door behind them and then let him seize her in a firm hug. He felt warm and safe, so much a part of her life now but never taken for granted. As she finally pulled away, she saw a Housian spark of interest in his paler blue eyes.

"What's wrong, Lisa?"

"Nothing, actually. It's good. The sub shop should deliver our sandwiches pretty soon. I'm sorry I couldn't get out of the hospital today." They usually tried to meet up once a week for a lunch out together, just the two of them.

He looked over at her desk and gave an impressed nod. "Busy day?"

"Yes. We . . . I might be taking several days off in the next week or two, so I'm trying to get all the fires banked and lined up to delegate."

"And as much dealt with yourself before then as possible so you won't have to delegate those," he filled in. He caught her arm and tugged her gently toward the couch. "What's going on?"

She sat down. This _was_ good, as she'd said, but it was also touchy. She knew she was about to hurt him, and she couldn't help it. "Greg knows I'm talking to you about this," she started out. "He's . . ."

He caught on so quickly, his mind still nimble at 75. "Passing the buck? Avoiding bringing it up himself?"

She sighed. "Mostly, yes. I volunteered for this, but I could tell he was tying himself up in knots anyway, and he's still got to tell the girls. I thought it might make it a little easier on him to share this conversations. It's not that . . ." She trailed off, knowing as well as he did that it _was_ that House was uncomfortable talking to him, at least on this. She'd watched him fret over it for a day and a half before she'd made her offer. "I'm sorry, Thomas."

He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "It's okay. After all, if he has trust issues, whose fault is that?"

"John House's," she replied firmly.

He gave her a grateful if not-totally-convinced smile. "What's going on?"

"Greg's seeing a pain management specialist."

He brightened up, his own feelings washed away for the moment in the wave of this news for his son. "That's wonderful! Is it helping? I didn't see him yesterday for lunch as usual; he had a case." Abruptly, he realized that that might not be the truth, and his son could have been simply avoiding him.

"He _did_ have a pressing case," Cuddy confirmed. "Still does, but when I talked to him mid morning, I think _he_ knows the answer now and is just spinning it out for the team. I'm sure they'll solve it one way or another before he has to leave to drive to Jensen's this afternoon. As for the doctor, he's only had one brief appointment so far, just taking him records basically. They didn't have time to really dig into everything. The real strategy session is next week on Thursday."

"But the doctor has some ideas?" Thomas asked hopefully. "You mentioned possible time off."

"Yes. The doctor _did _say he thought they could improve things. We don't know exactly what all will be involved yet, but Greg wants to get off the Vicodin. Unless they move straight to something stronger, he'll have to go through detox."

Thomas flinched. "Are there stronger options that are easier on the body?"

"Yes, there are, but they'll have to sort things out. A lot of the stronger things he's tried so far cloud his thinking, and he won't accept that. Besides, there are also non-narcotic things he hasn't tried. Maybe there's a mix of other strategies that might do some good on its own. Even if they find a better narcotic that lets him think, a lot of doctors won't prescribe long-term narcotics without a failure off them first."

Thomas was absorbing all this. "I hope they can find _something_ that works better. Or somethings. Even aside from how hard Vicodin is on the body, it isn't as effective for him anymore, is it?"

"No. He said he'd been cutting it back as far as he could lately, but even before then, even before the explosion, it didn't control the pain fully. It never has. He _won't_ talk about this subject freely, but I do think his leg is slowly getting worse. Just aging even if nothing else. You've seen how bad it can get yourself."

Thomas shuddered, remembering the desperation of those moments alone together after the explosion, when his son seemed to be heading straight for a pain-induced heart attack and Thomas couldn't help or reach him. Cuddy heard the thought and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

At that point, the secretary broke in via intercom to announce that their subs were here, and Cuddy got up to take the delivery. When she returned to the couch, Thomas had his thinking look on. "So if he goes through detox, there's no way the girls wouldn't notice. He _is_ going to talk to them? They need to be prepared from him, not just you by proxy."

Cuddy nodded. "He knows he needs to explain that himself to them. He's dreading it, but he isn't dodging it."

A brief flash of the wounded feelings far beneath crossed Thomas' face. "I do wish he could talk to me. I'm glad for him. Sometimes I wonder how long it's going to take until he really lets me in."

Cuddy gripped both of his arms, the wrapped subs set aside and forgotten for the moment. "Listen, Thomas. Do you realize that just a year ago, you were still only communicating by email? You'd never even had a phone conversation with him yet. You didn't know the girls' names. I'd never had a private conversation with you at all. Now you don't have to hide who you are, we do things together, and he even has private lunches and such with you. There is a lot of progress here, and it's not slow."

He considered, then relaxed a little. "Thanks. I needed that. Hard to keep perspective at times."

"It's just that his leg is such a big issue for him. John apparently never lost a chance to cut him down for it. He doesn't even talk about this subject openly with _me_. I wish he would, but he doesn't. But he's doing this for the family. You included. He's terrified, but I don't think he ever would have taken this step if he were still alone."

"It does seem to be a good doctor?" Thomas asked again.

"Excellent. He's got a top international reputation. Greg hasn't told me that much about the appointment, but I could tell he's impressed. Grumbling, of course, but impressed, and I think he's hopeful. The doctor wanted him to keep a pain diary for the next week - ratings and anything he thinks affects it, up or down. He hasn't let me read it, of course, but he _is_ doing it. I see him writing in that all the time, while complaining regularly about it being a waste of time, but I think he is getting interested in it himself, already seeing some patterns. The man has gotten his attention already, and that's a big first step with Greg. I think he's starting to believe himself that maybe there are improvements available out there."

"I hope so. So what is the timetable on this? A week or two?"

"Detox alone, the worst would be over after a few days, but then we have the pain itself to deal with. We'll have to see what they plan at next week's appointment. I know he wants to be feeling better and have things on an even keel by Abby's birthday. He _did_ mention yours, too, but given the timeline, I don't know how he'll be feeling by then. It should be better by then just from the detox, but it depends on what other treatments they use whether he's 100%. Well, I don't think he ever feels 100%, but I'm not sure where he'll be. That's something else I think he was hesitating to tell you himself."

"Lisa, there is no better present he could give me than to try to find improvements in pain management for himself. My birthday doesn't matter."

She leaned over to give him another hug. "Your birthday _does_ matter. To him, too. But we'll just have to see how things are going."

"That answers one thing I was going to ask you. I was talking to Lewis last night, and he'd like to come up to visit and meet everybody. We had tentatively discussed my birthday, but no firm plans made yet. I told him it was up to the two of you. I'll tell him November would probably work better."

She smiled, knowing how eager Thomas was to show off his new family. "November would be better. Surely he'll be feeling better by then." She reached for the subs. "Now, we do need to get down to lunch. I wish I had more time today, but I don't."

(H/C)

After leaving his daughter-in-law's office, Thomas wandered around the main floor of the hospital for a few minutes, debating, then made up his mind. Heading for the elevator, he pushed the button firmly. He did understand Greg's reasons for being afraid to talk to him, but a little prompt reassurance there wouldn't hurt. Greg knew they were having lunch, and he'd be busily filling in scenarios and imagined versions of the conversation all afternoon without some solid data.

Thomas approached the Diagnostics suite carefully, his eyes and ears peeled, sizing up the situation. Lisa had said they were right on top of solving the case, and he didn't want to interfere with that. He just wanted to catch a few minutes after the end of it.

As he got close enough to see the conference room, he could tell that two of the team were there, the other two probably off testing or breaking and entering or something. His son stood at the whiteboard. Thomas took a moment to study his stance, weighing the uneven balance and the lines of pain as well as the mood of the moment. Yes, they were within minutes of solving it, Thomas thought, his son skillfully prodding them in the desired direction.

House came to attention and saw him through the glass. He tensed up briefly, shielded uncertainty in his eyes, then forced himself to relax, but the two team members had noticed and turned. Caught, Thomas walked on into the conference room and leaned against the wall in a corner, clearly on hold for a convenient time. Kutner gave Thomas a friendly grin. He had been back at work for a few months now and was fully recovered from his illness. The other doctor here was Ramirez, and she sized up the newcomer, then turned back around, refocusing on the whiteboard a little too intently.

Thomas watched her. He knew he bothered her somehow, reminding her of something. Kutner accepted him fully, though with carefully controlled spikes of interest and curiosity that reminded Thomas of his son. Of the other two team members, the ones not here, Taub tried to act uninterested but was in spite of himself. Hollingwood was the one who most took his occasional forays into the fringes of the PPTH world at face value. To her, he was simply her boss' father, newly back in his life, not a puzzle to be worked.

The case ended within a minute, his son obviously tired of spinning it out. Thomas lacked the medical training, but he could tell that his son's comments at this point were far less subtle, a sledge hammer now driving the team the way he wanted them to go. Kutner came up with the answer, and House nodded his approval. "Go. Treat."

The other two left, and father and son faced each other. House waited for the judgment while hoping that he was wrong. He'd been a coward today letting Lisa bail him out, and he knew it. The old man pulled out a chair at the conference table and sat down. If he'd asked his son to, House would have resisted, even though his damn leg was hurting today, but Thomas didn't. Instead, he said simply, "Greg, I'm proud of you."

That wasn't what he'd expected, though again part of him had dared to hope. He dropped into a facing chair. Thomas met his eyes directly. "I'm proud of you. And I hope there is something better this doctor can do for you. I wish you weren't in pain at all, but I'm fully supporting you in this."

House sifted through the tones and the body language. Slowly, finally, he started to relax. "Haven't told the girls yet," he said. "I'm not going to until we know what we'll be trying. So when you're babysitting tonight, don't let Abby twist it out of you by letting her see you have a secret. Or Rachel, either."

Thomas smiled at him and obligingly let the topic change. "I won't. You know last Friday night, Rachel tried to get me to take her down to the barn so she could spend the night in a stall like Ember?"

House laughed softly. "What did Abby say to that?"

"She wasn't as enthusiastic, but as long as she could take her music computer along, she agreed to one night of it. But she said that _Rachel_ would have to 'splain to Mama.' Since it was her idea, after all. Rachel wanted me to do the explaining, and they got into a debate on that." Thomas chuckled himself, remembering it. The two men talked about the girls for a little while, and when Thomas left five minutes later, he felt satisfied with his mission to the fourth floor. He found himself humming as he pushed the elevator button, his best attempt at a brisk, upbeat song, hoping that this pain doctor really could help Greg.

The bellow from Diagnostics was heard clear through the open door and down the hall, drawing a passing nurse up in her tracks. "Cut the noise pollution and get an iPod, old man. You couldn't carry a tune if you tried."

Chuckling, Thomas walked into the elevator.


	8. Chapter 8

The team left the conference room, heading for the patient and the lab respectively, and House limped into his office and sat down, picking up and twirling his thinking ball. The current patient was progressively getting worse and threatening to start circling the drain on them, and he as well as the team wasn't making much progress with this one. Nothing was as annoying as unsolved puzzles, and he also was quite aware that this puzzle was a life. He had never lost sight of that fact through the years, though many at PPTH would have disagreed, but even more lately, he found himself conscious of the patients as people and of the families they loved and who loved them. Or didn't love at times, as the case might be.

He realized that he was rubbing his thigh, and with a sigh, he pulled out the little notebook that was his pain diary. He jotted down the current reading, adding "tough case" next to it, then let his mind wander away from the whiteboard next door. Sometimes, taking a short break from fixed attention on a case would help provide new energy and direction when he returned to it.

The pain diary was turning fascinating. He'd never kept such close track of details before, and he thought he'd have plenty here to interest MacDonald at the big strategy appointment tomorrow. In fact, he was anticipating a few disagreements and already gathering ammunition for them.

Looking at the last week, there was no question that the two hardest pain days, last Friday and today, had followed several intense hours on a multiday case with a disrupted night in between. Last Friday had been worse; he'd never made it home the night before. House was surprised to note that last Wednesday night's storm, while still ramping up the ratings, didn't quite equal last Thursday night's all-nighter at the hospital. Last night, for comparison, he had made himself stop, though quite late, and had a night, albeit short, in his own bed at home. Better but still worse than baseline.

In general, his sleep patterns were far better than they'd ever been; he'd have to emphasize that point to MacDonald. It was just the occasional case demanding extra evening effort, maybe one case every week or two on average. This last week had not been typical there with two tough cases. He _did_ try to limit such overtime, wanting to be home with his family. He was proud of how he and Jensen had managed over years to slowly reprogram his sleep habits. Even before the pain, he had never slept well, and he had realized through therapy that sleep was seen as a threat, a time of letting down his defenses, a time when John had loved to sneak up on him and catch him off guard. All his adult life, he had resisted it, still chained to the specter of John, though he hadn't let himself acknowledge it. No more. If anything disturbed his sleep these days, it was almost invariably work.

He was also surprised to discover that his med schedule, which again he thought of as so much better, still wasn't quite regular, and that, too, had subtle impacts on the pain. Had to emphasize the improvement overall to MacDonald, though House also had been making more of an effort the last few days himself. Meals had also slipped off track time or two, especially at the hospital when he was working.

He wondered now if MacDonald's own stubborn refusal to make overtime appointments, something that House had written down as arrogance at the time, was a personal pain management strategy. Had MacDonald realized that hours beyond a daily limit increased the pain?

But their professions were really nothing alike. MacDonald, running a basically appointment-only practice, could set office hours and leave, doing his chart reviews and professional writing at home in far more comfortable settings. In fact, for all House knew, he had a designated day off during the week for that. No patients would die on his watch if he firmly closed the door at 5:00. House was different. And he _did_ try to keep a schedule now, but sometimes, fate and patients interfered and demanded extra.

House had tried to uncover further details on MacDonald. Nothing was known from internet research, at least nothing back pain producing. The man very rarely went to a conference, though his publishing reputation was regular and excellent. House could find no disruptions over the last ten years in his publishing schedule. All of his writings, however, dealt firmly with work. There were next to no personal details included.

House had even gone over to an ortho spine outpatient clinic on Tuesday morning when he was having a slow day. He had sat there in the parking lot watching patients enter and exit and assessing their movements. When he found the closest match, much worse and more acute-looking than MacDonald but similar in specific muscular impact, he had exited the car and fallen into brief conversation with the man as they both entered. Willing to capitalize on his reputation and recent publicity in a good cause, House was glad to find that the man, after pointed name emphasis with a few details, remembered him. A brief conversation just outside the doors that was on the surface casual but in fact probing subtly revealed that the man had broken his lower lumbar spine in an MVA about eight months ago. The man had then gone on in while House ducked off and made his escape.

Cuddy entered his office at that moment, looking harried, and House put down his pen and closed the pain diary. "What's wrong. Lisa?"

"A new legal case turned up. I've spent the last hour digging into the details on that and trying to get the picture."

House sat back. "I swear, I haven't done anything. Well, nothing more than usual."

He was rewarded with a fractional relaxation and a weak smile. "Believe it or not, it's not about you. Orthopedic case. But I didn't even have it on my radar. And I _should_ have. It's a fine line on fault, could go either way, but there were complications, and Parker never reported it."

He understood now. Being caught with her administrative pants down was one of Cuddy's personal fears. Always, she wanted to be prepared. "That's Parker's fault."

"Yes, but I should have been aware of this one anyway."

"Could just be life's-tough complications, too. He's a decent doctor, even if a personal jerk. The two aren't exclusive."

The smile was a little stronger that time. "I realize that. How's your case going?"

His shoulders sagged. "Nowhere fast."

"You'll get it." She looked at her watch. "I've got an urgent conference with _our_ lawyer - and with Parker - set up in an hour. Might as well go catch up on what I _should_ have been doing this morning myself while I'm waiting. I know you're busy, just wanted to see you for a minute."

He stood up. "Only see me?"

"Well . . ." She let him wrap her in a hug, and he didn't push it past her public setting comfort limits this time.

"You didn't let the hospital down, Lisa," he said softly, "and a wise woman once told me something about a legal case. She pointed out that we still had more preparation time than I was thinking and didn't have to be in court in five minutes. This might not even _go_ to court, for all you know."

He felt her tight muscles relax a little. "Thanks, Greg."

"House!" Kutner's voice broke in from the doorway. They split apart, Cuddy self-conscious and House annoyed.

"What?"

"New symptom. You've got to see this patient's skin! Very weird."

House forgot annoyance in a flash. "Define weird." Without a farewell, he left the office a half step ahead of Kutner, his whole being alert and focused, a hound on a hot scent. Cuddy smiled watching him and wished him happy and productive differentializing.

Her pager went off at that moment, and she pulled it out, reading the message from her secretary. As she replaced it and turned to go, her eye happened to fall on House's desk with the pain diary still sitting there.

_His pain diary._

The thought pounced before she could prevent it. He apparently had been jotting down all sorts of details in that this week, including what made it worse and what helped. She might have here the answer to the question she had asked him a few times and he had always dodged. How much did sex actually bother his leg?

Cuddy turned half away, trying to break the spell of seeing that notebook, but she was gnawing at her lower lip in thought and turmoil. She'd wondered a few times before, but the question didn't really become entrenched until her meltdown summer before last. She knew that she had truly hurt him that one night in her wildly possessive lovemaking with all the strength of desperation behind it. He refused to talk about it then or since, brushing off her apology, but the deeply buried worry remained since then and occasionally popped out to fret her. Of course, that night had been unusual, but were there ways or positions that made a difference even normally? She had even tried to conduct her own survey since then, trying to keep track of subtle cues, but she kept getting . . . distracted.

Not that he was likely to make his notes _that_ complete, including position, timing, and all other details, but it would be information, more than she had. More than he would give her.

He would not talk to her about this, not even to give the genuine, nonjoking reassurance that she needed.

With a quick glance out the door into the empty hall, she picked up the diary. Shielding it with her body from the view of passersby, she quickly flipped to the night before last.

Nothing. He didn't even mention their love life at all, much less attach a rating of helping or worsening the pain.

She turned back, looking up another evening. No mention there, though the hot tub soak before their sex later did gain a notation. It had improved his pain to a 3 1/2.

To a 3 1/2? _That _was a good rating?

For the first time, she looked beyond her tightly focused quest, absorbing the numbers. An honest, complete account of his typical days. It horrified her. There didn't seem to be _any_ rating, outside of the hot tub, below 5. There were plenty above it. Highest was 9, last Thursday night, and he made a note that he had used injectable diazepam.

He had been at work then, pulling his all-nighter as the patient crashed. He hadn't taken morphine along with it, which clouded his thoughts, but he had been forced to the diazepam. She hadn't even realized that he kept a stock in his office, probably in the locked drawer of his desk, though she thought now that she should have. After all, surely he needed it at times on the long nights at work. She wondered who had given him the shot? Probably he himself, privately, and never mentioned it.

Blinking back tears at the thought of him having a lonely 9 up here that night, one which he had never mentioned to her, she turned another page back, still skimming. Part of her knew this was wrong, but parched for information on this subject, she couldn't look away.

No further sex was mentioned; he kept that pattern. A note jumped out at her from Wednesday early afternoon after he had driven back from MacDonald's office. It was, in fact, the first entry in the notebook. "7 - post trip back from Philly - car." Then, in what looked like a second note added later, it said, "Car problems; trips not always that bad."

Car problems? He hadn't mentioned a word to her about car problems. Not mechanically crippling ones, as the car continued to run and be used since then, but something that made his leg even worse than usual on a trip. Something that affected ride, not just made the vehicle go.

The transmission must be acting up again. He'd already replaced it a few times over the years. Cuddy gave a low snarl of frustration. She knew why he was reluctant to mention that; he was well aware of her opinion of his car. No doubt he'd avoid telling her until he needed to take it to the garage and had to have a ride back. What the hell did that car mean to him? It wasn't worth the money of another major repair. Even with the current problem aside, they made cars with far better rides now, too. A new car almost certainly would help his leg.

She didn't know why he valued that car. She _had_ asked, sincerely asked him a few times. She didn't just criticize it; she had tried to understand his perspective.

He hadn't responded, had just avoided talking about it, much like he did with his leg.

Footsteps sounded outside, and Cuddy jumped guiltily. A nurse walked by, heading on down the hall. Suddenly horrified at what she was doing, Cuddy firmly closed the diary, resisting the still-unread portions. She placed it back on House's desk, carefully trying to remember where it had been, and then she made herself turn away. She walked to the elevator, privately worrying about his car now and with her original question still unanswered.

Thirty minutes later, House stepped off the elevator, whistling in satisfaction. Much better than the old man, he noted. The family musical talent had certainly jumped across Thomas. House entered his office in full post case glow. He noted the pain diary on the desk and shook his head. It looked untouched, though, and it wasn't like it was labeled with _MY PAIN_ in neon letters on the front. Annoyed at his carelessness, he pocketed it and then sat down, logging onto the computer, looking up the latest on his patient's diagnosis of Stevens-Johnson syndrome.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Welcome to the new readers to the series. It's great to know that people are still discovering and enjoying stories years after they've been posted.

The lines from the contract are verbatim from a standard one. It has more than that in it, but you get the idea.

(H/C)

House parked the car and sat there for a moment, studying the medical office building. What did those walls hold for him? The pain diary was in his pocket, and the EKG and MRI had already been delivered to MacDonald electronically. Today, he would get the road map for the journey ahead of them.

He got out and walked a couple of laps of the car, easing the kinks. His leg hadn't liked the trip, but he was feeling pretty good this morning physically in spite of his nervousness. He had gone to bed early last night, exhausted from the case, and had slept well. Even the old car seemed a little less creaky this morning and hadn't jolt-shifted once. Yes, he still had some time to postpone the inevitable, didn't need to rush it off to the garage this week. No point in spending that kind of repair bill until he had to.

Cuddy had seemed tense and edgy last night and this morning both, no doubt about her surprise legal case, but she had come up to his office to wish him luck and tell him she was proud of him. Poor Cuddy. He knew she was trying to put the hospital to bed for potential time-off during his detox, too. He appreciated being placed above work, but she would still fret over her additional baby, PPTH, even while not regretting her choice.

Detox. He shivered. He couldn't imagine getting through it without her. But for today, once past this looming appointment, when he could focus better and had a plan instead of just speculation about his own treatment, he'd offer later this afternoon to look over the case from a medical point of view and see if he could contribute anything to help reassure her here and remove this one from her worry list.

The building still waited, large and impassive. His questions weren't going to be answered out here in the parking lot. Squaring his shoulders, he entered.

MacDonald once again seemed to be running like clockwork. House was called back after not too much of a wait, and he went straight to the puzzle. Different room, different puzzle. It was a landscape, probably meant to be soothing, and was already partway worked. He was just clicking the last piece into place when MacDonald tapped on the door and entered.

House turned quickly to face the other doctor. He turned a little too quickly and flinched as his leg snarled at him, and he was annoyed to see MacDonald assess the movement with clinical eyes. No comment was made, though. "May I see the diary?" MacDonald asked.

"That was the whole point of doing it," House grumbled. He handed it over and watched MacDonald sit down. The man was moving better this morning than he had been last week; maybe last Wednesday's approaching weather front had been registering on his barometer, too. Still, it wasn't normal. Subtle but there for a medical spotlight that looked for it, and yes, very similar, albeit much longer term and chronic, to the patient at that ortho spine clinic, the one who had broken his back eight months ago.

MacDonald was reading the diary. He read very quickly, but House didn't think he missed anything from it. House jittered with the top of his cane in the few minutes of silence and wished for his thinking ball. "So," he said, trying to distract himself, "did you break your lumbar spine?"

MacDonald tightened up a little but simply did not respond. With a pointed ignoring that would have done credit to Belle, he kept right on reading. House was impressed all over again. Not responding to a jab was a rare talent.

_"Maybe it's something personal and private,"_ Jensen's voice from last Friday sounded in his memory. House had been complaining about MacDonald's lack of details on his own diagnosis, and Jensen had been watching him with that pot-calling-the-kettle-black amusement in his eyes that was damned annoying. _"How would you like being probed for details by near strangers on your leg?"_

MacDonald finished the diary and jumped straight into that very thing. "What have you noticed this week in keeping the diary?" he asked.

"It's _in_ there," House dodged. "I did write it all down." Well, most of it.

"Yes, you did. It's a very well-done record of your last week. I just wondered if you wanted to bring up patterns yourself. I'm going to even if you aren't, but I'm not discounting your intelligence and perception, Dr. House."

House sighed. "Working extra bugs me. But it's _required _now and then. I don't have just an office practice like this one. Patients often _die_ when I can't help them. Hours and even minutes really can count"

"I realize that, but the connection is very strong. On those nights when it _is_ necessary, try to give yourself breaks more frequently than you do. Surely there are a few minutes here and there, while tests are being run, that could be capitalized on. Is two extra-demanding cases per week about the average?"

"No. Usually about one. I do try to limit the overtime. And really, I'm sleeping a lot better than I used to, and I'm working shorter hours. This is a big _improvement_ over a few years ago when I didn't have a family."

MacDonald nodded. "Just be aware of it. I have a feeling you get hyperfocused and don't tend to notice even some of the opportunities you do have for a rest. Speaking of getting hyperfocused, your meal schedule and your medication schedule are not entirely regular, especially at work, even on days with easier cases than those two. Things like that do definitely impact your pain management, Dr. House."

"That's also a lot better," House insisted again.

"Better is good, but it still leaves room for improvement. Why stop at better?" House had no immediate answer for that one, and MacDonald offered the diary back to him. "I'd advise continuing to keep notes in that. It will help you stay more aware of meals and meds." House took it back with the look of a kid assigned extra homework, and MacDonald changed the subject. "I have reviewed your records thoroughly, as well as the EKG and MRI you sent. Before we get down to strategies, is there anything else besides gabapentin that you completely rule out as an option?"

"I am _not_ having an amputation," House said firmly. "Forget that suggestion."

"Actually, I wasn't going to make that suggestion. I think you'd be a far-from-ideal candidate for it. After all these years, you'd almost certainly have continuing pain, and the cut would have to be a very high one. It would also create complications if you need a hip replacement on that side, which I think you're probably going to within five to seven years. An amputation now might push that off a year or two, but I doubt it would prevent it. When they did replace the hip, they'd have trouble finding enough bone to insert the femoral part of the prosthesis with an amputation. The component and any artificial leg would be far too close and would irritate each other chronically."

House blinked. It was rare that he hadn't thought of something medically, but that particular argument against amputation had never occurred to him. He rubbed his hip, which did ache persistently at times. "What do you think about the knee?" he asked, for the first time today presenting a simple question with no defensiveness.

"The degeneration on the hip is worse. Yes, you might need replacement there eventually, but I'd expect the hip to come in line ahead of it. Fortunately, the femur is sound, so hip and knee replacements both would work if required. You'd no doubt have a much harder rehab, whether knee or hip, than the average patient, but I think it would ultimately be successful. I realize that the knee seems to hurt you more at times than the hip right now, but I think the hip is close enough to the thigh that your mind is having trouble separating those two elements completely. You're too close to overload to draw the lines precisely."

The leg was in fact a column of pain on bad days. House absorbed this, then went on. "I'd really like to avoid even lesser surgical options like ablation or such except as a last resort. Also anything as risky again as the ketamine." He had his family to think of now. The stakes for complications and failure didn't just impact him.

MacDonald made a note. "I'd certainly recommend conservative measures first, anyway. There is a lot you haven't tried yet. About the gabapentin, would you consider pregabalin, or would you rather avoid that entire class of drugs?"

"I'd rather avoid the whole class," House replied.

"All right. Anything else we can strike off the list at the beginning?"

"Not that I can think of right now."

"Okay." MacDonald sat back in his chair, looking at his patient, not the chart. "I'm really impressed that you can walk as well as you do, Dr. House. With this amount of the quadriceps gone, many people would be in a wheelchair. I suspect you are dealing with three different kinds of pain here, which of course feed into each other in a vicious cycle. First, purely muscular from the thigh trying to compensate and overworking the other muscles. Second, neuropathic from nerve damage at surgery. Third, as a result of the leg, your entire body mechanics are off, and you are throwing tremendous strain onto other areas as well. As for treatment, I'd say the first and third you're treating not very successfully right now, and the neuropathic element doesn't seem to be being treated at all. Do you agree so far?"

House nodded.

"We're going to try to improve treatment on the other two and also cover the neuropathic pain. My first few recommendations don't involve medication at all."

"If you're going to tell me to visualize the healing," House snapped, "we can forget that bullshit right now."

The flash of sympathy across MacDonald's face was so quick that House almost missed it. "No, I'm not," he said. "But I'd like you to get fitted for custom inserts in your shoes. You can still wear sneakers with them, might have to loosen the laces. I'd also like you to get established with a chiropractor and see him a minimum of once a month."

"Half of chiropractors out there are frauds," House pointed out.

MacDonald shrugged. "Don't pick that half, then. I'm sure you can check out reputations. I do know a very good one here in Philadelphia whom I refer to, but I imagine you want to do your own screening. Your shoe wear tells the story here, as does watching your gait. You are walking on a not-totally-stable leg, and it torques your body and, of course, your spine constantly. I really think that this might make a lot of difference. Again, once you get realigned, you need to keep going for regular appointments. Don't settle for better and then let it gradually build up again. I'd also recommend a soft sleeve wrap on your right knee. That will help in supporting things. Down to medication, have you ever used lidocaine ointment?"

House shuddered. "Burns like hell. Capsaicin was even worse. Any kind of absorbable medicine there annoys the skin."

"I actually meant for your other joints. Shoulder, hip, knee. I think it would help."

No, he hadn't. After failure on the thigh years ago, he'd taken great pleasure in throwing the tube away. "Worth a shot."

"Speaking of shots, that also is an option, of course. Not to your thigh but to the other joints. I imagine your thigh would go into a spasm from the needle."

He cringed at the thought. "Directly into the scar, yes. I had thought once about trying cortisone or Synvisc in the knee but never got around to it."

"It's an eventual possibility, and of course, down the road, you'll probably have to fail joint injections in the hip before an orthopedic surgeon would move on to a replacement. For the moment, though, while we're trying so many new elements and adjusting the pain meds, I'd recommend a systemic course of prednisone for two weeks to really knock out any inflammation." House considered that, then nodded. That was a good idea.

"Down to the neuropathic pain, if we're totally avoiding the GABE class of drugs, my next choice would be amitriptyline."

House ran that one through mentally. It was more commonly used for other things, namely depression or migraines, but yes, it would have an effect on neuropathic pain. He wondered why he'd never suggested that to Wilson. Once free of the first pain doc, the champion of gabapentin, he had tossed that entire area of treatment aside. He was so busy thinking that he nearly missed MacDonald's next question. "Are you seeing a psychiatrist?"

House tensed up so abruptly that his leg yelped. "How the hell is that relevant?" Jensen's notes, of course, were not a part of his PPTH chart.

MacDonald didn't back down. "It is _extremely_ relevant for two reasons. First, if you are, there is no way I'm prescribing amitriptyline or anything similar without talking with that doctor. We will have to be partners in your care." He watched House simmering and added, "Second, if you aren't, I was going to recommend that you start."

House slammed his cane down on the floor with a loud whack. "So you read the news stories, too, and think anybody that screwed up must need a shrink."

"I haven't read the news stories," MacDonald countered.

"Then 'what news stories' would be the correct answer."

"I'm _aware_ in general of what happened with Patrick Chandler, yes. People talk about it in the medical community. But first of all, realize that I've only been in this country for a few months. At the time of that trial, I was still in Scotland. Second, what I did hear, which is just secondhand from overhead conversations, seemed to center on private issues. Unfortunately made public, yes, but nothing related to how you practiced medicine, which until last week's first appointment was my only framework for you. Looking for more information on your childhood didn't seem relevant."

House stared at him. "You passed up a chance to learn the full story on something like that about somebody?"

"Yes. It was your business. Not mine. Your medical papers, now, I've enjoyed in depth over the years as they were published."

House was amazed. A new thought slowly wormed its way in. "Then why would you have recommended seeing a shrink? You still think this is psychosomatic?"

"I never thought it was psychosomatic. Some contributing elements, no doubt, but those are definitely the lesser part. But you clearly have major body image difficulties with this, Dr. House. I think coming more to terms with your leg - psychologically - _would_ actually help your overall treatment. So again, do you see a psychiatrist?"

House was doing his best to fight the resentment back down. "Yes, I do. I've seen him for a few years."

"Good. I _do_ need to talk to him about possibly adding amitriptyline. That is very relevant both to his field and mine." MacDonald looked at House, whose body language was eloquent right then, and added, "We would only be discussing that. Trust me, Dr. House, I would leave anything private that wasn't needed in my treatment of you. Have him call me with you there, if you like; we could schedule it, and you could listen in."

_Trust me_. House trusted Jensen. He didn't really know MacDonald yet. Still, he couldn't deny that amitriptyline _did_ have psychotropic effects. Jensen probably prescribed the stuff to patients regularly. Jensen had always kept right on top of an up-to-date list of what else House was taking, though he hadn't pushed it as far as wanting to talk to Wilson about House's meds. House tried to channel Cuddy saying, "I'm proud of you." His family. He was doing this for his family. "That could probably be arranged," he said grudgingly.

MacDonald gave him a smile. "Thank you. Voltaren and Flexeril I think we can leave alone at the moment, as well as the injectable diazepam. Even the morphine for severe breakthrough pain will probably still be left available. You're going to have to have some big gun for the 10s." House was both surprised and relieved at that. "Back to the question of new things to try. Have you ever used a TENS unit? It's not mentioned in the chart."

"No," House said. The idea of being hooked up to wires had bothered him at first after discharge from the lengthy hospital stay after the infarction. He'd been on monitors and leads and wires enough to power a 747, it seemed, and he was sick of them. That distaste had worn off with a good dose of freedom, but again, he'd never gotten back around to considering it.

"That's something else I'd like to try. I would recommend putting that off a week or two if you're going to detox from Vicodin. The skin sensations from detox itself wouldn't give true feedback from the unit." That made sense. House tensed up, waiting for the Vicodin-shaped elephant in the room to enter the conversation. This would, no doubt, be the crux of the whole program. "About the Vicodin, it is a lousy choice for long-term management. Ideally, we would prefer using no opioids at all, or only the breakthrough meds occasionally at the worst."

House studied his hand resting on his thigh. "I know."

"But. . ." House looked up at the word, meeting MacDonald's eyes. "Dr. House, through many years in practice, I've developed a sort of gut feeling on what's ahead from the physical details of a case. A radar, if you will. I'm sure you have in your field, too."

"Yes, I have," House agreed. That indefinable sixth sense had solved many cases for him.

"Dr. House, I will be honest with you. After the chart review, I am not certain if we can get satisfactory pain control and functionality off some chronic opiate. There is simply too much damage. We can certainly try; I just am not sure if it will work. For that reason, I'll make you an offer that I don't to everybody. I would be willing to move straight on to methadone if you like. You do need to get off the Vicodin, but I give you the choice whether to try going without any narcotic or just to switch."

House felt like he had just been handed a Get Out of Detox Free card. He'd never expected that. Pain management docs always wanted to try every other bullet first. Even now, he was waiting for the "gotcha," for MacDonald to retract the offer in sadistic glee. It didn't come. "I'd rather get totally off narcotics," he started, "but I have my doubts about it, too. I _did_ try a lot else. It was never enough. That was in the first year after surgery, but still . . ." The novelty of not being treated like an addict here stunned him.

MacDonald seemed to hear the thought. "You are not an addict, Dr. House. The simple fact that you were off Vicodin so easily without issues during the ketamine settles that question. You are dependent, as a diabetic is on insulin. If you'd like to try detox and just introducing the new elements, we can set it up to be as comfortable as possible, but I know it will still be an ordeal. But I personally think we might wind up using methadone eventually anyway, even if we tried the non-narcotic road first."

House took a deep breath as the fear receded, fear of losing it in front of the girls during detox, fear of the pain itself, the savage animal that almost snarled and growled at times as it chewed on his leg. "I'd like to try the methadone," he said, then added, "and I will look up a good chiropractor and see about the inserts." Those were good ideas. Having MacDonald talk to Jensen still rankled, but overall, this appointment had gone better than he had dared to expect.

MacDonald pulled out a page he'd stuck in the top of House's chart. "All right. We're almost set. Of course, I will have to prescribe the pain medications."

"I expected that." Wilson would be delighted to be off the hook.

"I'll give you prescriptions today for methadone, prednisone, and for a TENS unit, and you can set up a time for the psychiatrist to call me so we can discuss amitriptyline."

"I'm seeing him tomorrow afternoon," House said.

"I'm tied up tomorrow, but Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, I could fit in a call. I have some time open on all of those days; we can get a list from the secretary on your way out. Even between appointments would work; I realize he has a schedule, too. We can even three-way conference call it so you won't have to leave work yourself." MacDonald handed over the paper. "One last thing. This is our standard pain management contract."

House just about came off the chair. "Your _what_?"

"Pain management contract. It's required for prescription of narcotic medications."

House read it over, feeling his blood pressure rise. "You don't need one from me."

"I need one from all patients on narcotics, Dr. House."

"But I'm a _doctor_."

MacDonald didn't waver. "Here, you're a patient. An unusually knowledgeable and brilliant one, but the practice rules still apply. These are legal issues these days, Dr. House."

House kept reading. _I understand that if I break this Agreement, my provider will stop prescribing these pain control medicines. . . I would also be amenable to seek psychiatric treatment, psychotherapy, and/or psychological treatment if my provider deems necessary. . . I will not use any illegal controlled substances, including marijuana, cocaine, etc., nor will I misuse or self-prescribe/medicate with legal controlled substances. Use of alcohol will be limited to times when I am not driving or operating machinery and will be infrequent. . . I will not attempt to obtain any controlled medications, including opioid pain medications, from any other provider . . .I agree that refills of my prescriptions for pain medications will be made only at the time of an office visit or during regular office hours. No refills will be available during evenings or on weekends. . . I agree to use only this pharmacy _ for refills. . ._

House looked up to see MacDonald holding out a pen. "To hell with this," he said. Heaving himself to his feet, he tore the contract in half, tossed it at the other man, and stalked down the hallway to the lobby door. He didn't even pause as he passed the surprised secretary. Once outside, he got into the car, throwing his cane into the back seat, and did his best to peel rubber out of the parking lot. The Dodge hung at the exit onto the street, rolling out leisurely in first gear, the engine straining. House slammed a hand down on the wheel and gave it full gas, insisting, as approaching traffic leaned on their horns. One driver gave him the finger. The Dodge finally shifted with a jolt that House felt clear from his toes up through his right leg to his hip. As the car leaped forward, he returned the middle finger salute to the other driver, but there was no satisfaction in it. Steam rising, he drove back toward PPTH.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: A short but very significant update. Glad people like the pace picking up. This story is a long and hilly beast with several hills, so buckle up and enjoy.

Pain management contracts are fairly widely used in this country now. They were adopted and recommended by the American Academy of Pain Management in 1998. We'll have a nice long Jensen session coming up shortly trying to unruffle some feathers, but first . . .

(H/C)

She was simply going to have to tell him.

Cuddy sat behind her desk, looking every inch the thoughtful administrator working out some problem, but her mind was miles away from the paperwork. Even yesterday's surprise legal case didn't seem as important now.

She had had an awful night, doing her best to lie still and not wake up her husband, but her conscience hadn't given her any rest. Even her dreams when she did fall into fitful sleep were dreams about him, myriad variations on him discovering what she had done.

Letting him discover it was out of the question. It would be much better to tell him. He'd been exhausted last night and in no shape for an intense conversation, but hopefully with a good strategy session with MacDonald today, they would plan out the next few weeks privately tonight after the girls were asleep. She hated to think of the disappointment and hurt in his beautiful blue eyes, but he would probably ultimately understand. At least she hoped he would. It wasn't just curiosity; she had to emphasize that to him. It was concern. She knew privately that curiosity alone would have led him to read any diaries he happened to encounter. Still, he would never accept that as a valid reason for someone else reading his.

That car. She hoped it was behaving itself today, carrying its precious human cargo gently. She had considered taking it out last night to the store or something, just to test drive it a few blocks. She normally avoided driving it like the plague, and he knew that and was no doubt using it to keep her in the dark as long as possible. He knew that she wanted him to replace it. But lying awake last night, she realized that the chances of him waking up and finding her gone were too great. He was worn out, but his sleep wasn't drugged, not anymore. Pride in him warmed the chill of dread momentarily. He had made so much progress.

How much had she made? She wasn't looking forward to confessing this lapse to Patterson, either.

But he deserved to know first. Being anywhere except at the head of the line would hurt him even more. That was part of her punishment, and she had earned it. She simply had to tell him.

The door crashed open with such fury that it hit the wall on its swing, and House limp stalked in, his eyes blazing.

Cuddy stared at him. "Greg?" She came to her feet quickly, circling the desk.

House retrieved the door and slammed it shut. It trembled on its hinges. "That arrogant asshole! To hell with him and all of them."

Cuddy put her hand on his arm, and he shook it off. "Who, Greg?"

"MacDonald! Who the hell do you think I mean?"

She was floundering. House had been impressed last week at their first meeting. What on earth could have happened in one appointment to piss him off this much. "What did he do?"

"He was _enjoying_ it, Lisa. He must have been. Sitting there sounding all helpful, coming up with ideas. Just waiting to spring the trap." He paced a stiff circle of her office, and she could tell how much his leg was hurting. She caught his arm again.

"Come on, Greg. Let's sit down."

"I don't _need_ to sit down," he insisted petulantly. "I've been sitting all the way back in the . . .car." There was the briefest catch before that last word. If she hadn't known already, she might have missed it.

"What did MacDonald do?"

"He wants me to sign a pain management contract!"

Cuddy was still trying to fit the pieces together here. "They're pretty standard nowadays for narcotics patients, Greg."

"Not with me. Hell will freeze over before I sign that. He can keep the methadone."

"He wanted to put you on methadone? But that would eliminate detox." He was almost making her dizzy. She started orbiting with him, trying to anchor him and slow him down.

"I _know_ that. But I'd have to . . . he wants total control of the pain meds."

Cuddy sighed. "Of course he does. He can't manage them as well if he doesn't know all the details of what's going on." She tried to reason with him, proceeding carefully. "Listen, Greg. If he offered you methadone, didn't even require you to fail nonnarcotics first, he _does_ believe you. I'm sure he doesn't have all his patients on chronic opioids. He knows how much pain you're in."

It was her turn to catch slightly on her final words, but fortunately, he was too agitated still to notice. "He sprang it on me. Setting it up the whole time, sounding cooperative and helpful, and then pulled the rug out just to watch me take the fall."

Abruptly, the picture crystallized in her own epiphany. A large part of the problem here wasn't MacDonald or even contracts themselves; it was John. "Greg, he isn't like John," she started with less than her usual cautious approach to that subject.

He jerked his arm away from hers. "How the hell do you know?" Turned and flinching as he did it, he limped toward the door. "Got to talk to Wilson. He's be thrilled to know that he and his prescription pad are still needed." The door slammed again behind him.

Cuddy stood in the middle of her office floor, thinking furiously.

Little hints from that conversation replayed in her mind, along with deeply buried candles of expression that had flickered occasionally. Yes, the root problem here was John. House had said MacDonald had mentioned good ideas up until the contract came into the picture. Deep down, House really _wanted_ to be talked out of this last stand, she thought, though he'd never admit it. He was scared himself at the thought of throwing this chance away after he'd nerved himself up to take it. But being House, it would take time and care and probably a double-pronged approach with her and Jensen in collaboration to talk him down. He was right on the edge right now, but he had come straight to her. Not to Wilson and his prescription pad, but to her, even knowing that she would try to be the voice of reason and would see the administrative validity. In spite of his words and anger, he wasn't 100% decided on this.

And there was no way, no possible way, that she could tell him she had read his pain diary. Not until this crisis was past and his future pain management treatment was settled beyond question. The betrayal of adding that to the picture right now would be even worse than MacDonald's demands. It might even knock his decision the other way, back to the past instead of to a healthier future. They had to get the situation stabilized and less emotional before she could confess.

Cuddy sat down at her desk, put her elbows on the forgotten paperwork, and rested her guilty head in her hands.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Happy Thanksgiving to all of my US readers. Hope you enjoy this chapter, though it's probably nearer fictional turkey, some chewing required, than fictional pumpkin pie. Thursday for the story ends here, and next up is a Jensen session on Friday.

Here's a book recommendation for anybody interested in history, true crime, or both. Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde. I just finished it, and it's excellent, very researched, eschewing sensationalism, but well written enough to read like a novel. Fascinating painting of an era, too, and the author does a good job of walking the fine line of pointing out how their backgrounds and the times contributed to producing them, yet did not excuse them. I went into this book a bit skeptical and prepared to abandon ship along the way; anything titling itself some variation of "finally, the REAL story on (subject)" arouses my suspicions right out of the gate, as lots of authors think they are more objective than they are. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be keeping this one instead of throwing it back into the Paperbackswap pond for exchange. And once again, if you haven't discovered Paperbackswap dot com yet, check it out. Greatest book club ever. 95% of what I read comes through PBS these days.

Meanwhile, back at PPTH . . .

(H/C)

Wilson's door burst open, and the oncologist sighed, not even bothering to look up. Only one person at PPTH entered his office like that. Thankfully the previous patient had left five minutes ago, and Wilson was updating the chart with the treatment plan they had worked out. "Hello, House. Sure, come on in."

Nothing but audible breathing for a few seconds, and Wilson put down his pen and pushed the chart a token two inches farther away from his hand. He was surprised at his friend's expression when he met his eyes. House looked furious. Not as blazing as he had been in court that first day of testimony when he had spotted Thornton - _nothing_ in all the years Wilson had known him had come close to matching that - but right now was at least a contender for second place. "What's wrong?" Wilson asked.

House started pacing agitated circles, limited by Wilson's smaller office. "MacDonald is out. Screw the whole thing. I'll just keep going on the Vicodin."

Wilson couldn't hide the disappointment. "Why? I thought you were serious this time."

It was a mistake, as House turned on him, the annoyance easily expanding to cover Wilson as well. "I _was_ serious. Do you really think I'd set that consult up to just to screw with you and Lisa for a little while?"

"You screw with people all the time, House. But no, you don't on things this big. I shouldn't have put it like that; I apologize. You just surprised me." House was still limp-pacing, and Wilson went on tentatively to suggest, "Why don't you sit down? We can talk better if we're at least looking at each other."

House debated, obviously weighing his current pain level against whether sitting down would be openly admitting that pain level. Wilson made himself stay quiet; one misstep was probably all he'd be allowed in this conversation and have any remaining chance of defusing his friend's mood. House finally dropped into the chair in front of the desk, wincing a little as he did. "There's nothing to talk about. MacDonald is just like all the rest of them."

Wilson carefully started probing whatever MacDonald's offense had been. "Did he tell you to visualize the healing?"

"No. But he wanted me at the end to sign a pain management contract!"

"And of course, you . . ." Wilson pulled himself up short on the edge of another comment on typical House behavior. Keep thinking, he reminded himself. Don't just react. "Wait a minute, House. What course was he recommending that required a pain contract? Was he going to go straight from Vicodin to another narcotic?"

"He wanted to try methadone." House picked up one of Wilson's patient gifts on his desk and began to fiddle with it. "But _he_ wanted to control it. In writing."

"He'd be the one prescribing it, House. Methadone can be dangerous stuff; I can see his point. Besides, this is probably something he does for everybody on chronic narcotics. It wasn't about you."

House wasn't mollified. "Asking _me_ to sign it was about me."

"Did he suggest anything else along with it?"

For the first time, House looked thoughtful. "He had a few ideas that sounded interesting. Chiropractor, for instance." Wilson wondered why he'd never thought of that. Just watching House walk was enough to kink your spine. "Inserts in my shoes. He wasn't trying to push amputation, at least. But then, at the end, there had to be that contract. He was just waiting to pull that out."

"So you're tossing all of his ideas just because you didn't like the requirement on the final one? I think a chiropractor is a great idea, House. I have a good one myself who helps me. You were ready to go through detox a few days ago; why not try other things first that won't involve the contract if you just can't stand that? No point in throwing out the baby with the bathwater."

House seemed calmer than a few minutes ago, and Wilson could tell he was thinking about that point. Still, he had to be stubborn, of course. "I am _not_ working with MacDonald. Maybe I'll try the chiropractor, yeah, but not while I'm seeing him."

This sounded more promising. "There are lots of other pain management specialists around, House. Maybe not with the reputation of MacDonald, but the whole profession can't be composed of morons. Look around a little. I'm sure anybody would be glad to see you."

That again came across other than as Wilson had intended, and House shook his head. "I'd just be a curiosity to a lot of them. At least MacDonald didn't want to ask questions about the media and the news." House trailed off there, looking impressed at some memory in spite of himself.

"You'd be a _patient_, House. Not a gossip item. I'm sure lots of doctors could be professional with it and leave your past alone." House wasn't as sure, and his expression said so clearly. "Maybe start out small, even. One step at a time." _Any_ step would be progress from House's attitude over the last decade regarding pain management. "Try adding a chiropractor, the inserts, the other things MacDonald suggested besides the methadone, and then you could try getting off the Vicodin once those have had a chance to start helping. Maybe it would be enough."

House's hands stilled momentarily as he looked down at them, and again, like that Tuesday night at the bowling alley, Wilson caught just a glimpse of the fear. House might have been willing to go through detox for his family, but he still dreaded it, and he still wasn't sure if the pain could be controlled without Vicodin.

In the next moment, he straightened up with his epiphany expression. "Wait a minute. You're right; no point in tossing the whole plan just because MacDonald's a controlling jerk. He did have some good ideas." Wilson started to relax, scenting progress. "You can prescribe methadone for me yourself."

Relaxation had a head-on collision with a new wave of tension. "What? Are you crazy? I'm not a pain specialist, House."

"But many of your patients are on pain meds because of the cancer. You can do this, Wilson. And MacDonald _is_ a pain specialist, and he's the one who recommended this drug. So it's not your idea; it has all the pedigree you could ask for."

Wilson started his own agitated fiddling, seizing his pen. He wasn't even seeing the chart on his desk anymore. "My patients on high-dose narcotics are _terminal_, House. You're a whole different ballgame. This isn't my field, and methadone . . . it _has_ to be managed right, House. It can have a whole list of side effects. Hell, I've got trouble right now getting status updates from you on how the meds are working. There is no way I'm prescribing you methadone. Of _course_ MacDonald wants you to give him control and regular feedback on it. I don't blame him."

House pushed the chair back and stood, and his defiant eyes nailed the oncologist to his chair. "So you're cutting me off Vicodin again? Is that it? Because of _course_ you know what's best for me. That sounds familiar; wonder where I've heard it before."

Wilson sighed. "Do you _ever _let anything go? I've apologized for that, and so has Cuddy." Looking up at his friend, he saw the tension and the lines of pain - and again, the shielded fear. "I'm not cutting you off Vicodin, House. But please, please, consider seeing another pain specialist if you can't work with MacDonald. For your sake. They'd be a lot better at your whole case than I am."

House glared at his friend, then turned and stalked out. Wilson sighed again. He pulled out his cell phone after a minute to send a warning text to Cuddy, then stopped himself. House probably had already gone to her, and if he hadn't, he would soon, and Wilson jumping the gun on telling her would only annoy the diagnostician. Instead, after a moment, he put the phone back down.

It was surprising still after months and months how the urge for a drink could sometimes spring out at him and catch him off guard, especially when he was upset. Wilson sat there at his desk thinking and trying _not_ to think, and then he took his cell back out and sent a text to Sandra. _Come see me next break._

She was there within 10 minutes. "James? What's wrong?"

He spilled out the whole encounter with House, reluctantly at first, then getting into it, and by the end, he did feel better. Sandra was silent for a while, her thinking look on. "So what do we do?" he asked. "I scared him at the end about the Vicodin, and I didn't mean to, but damn it, he _does_ need off the stuff. I'm not going to force him into detox again, but still . . .I thought he was ready to do this. He said he was. But I'm not prescribing him methadone. Everything I said about understanding MacDonald's point there was true. It _does_ need close monitoring, and he's never given me that kind of feedback even with the Vicodin."

She nodded slowly. "I understand. I agree with you; if you feel professionally out of your depth there, you shouldn't prescribe it for him."

"So how do we fix this?"

She came around the desk and settled into his lap, giving him a hug. "Leave him alone and let him think. There's Jensen tomorrow, too. He'll help."

He relaxed a little. "I hadn't even thought of Jensen."

"Cuddy, too. But in the end, he has to work through this. The rest of us need to give him room to." She kissed him. "Thanks for talking to me."

All at once, he was overwhelmed with gratitude at his new life. He pulled her closer, resting one hand across her still-flat stomach. "Thanks for being there."

(H/C)

Ian MacDonald unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped in. It was small, much less than he could have afforded, but comfortable, and it was starting to feel like home. He took off his shoes, eying his own custom inserts in them, and then stretched cautiously, working out a few kinks. The pain wasn't too bad tonight. He'd have a hot soak in a little while. First, though, he'd check email and find out his son's schedule.

He sat down at the desk in the well-molded, comfortable chair which was one of the most expensive items in the room, perfectly and professionally contoured. It looked almost like a normal office chair, its medical features beautifully disguised, but the price tag was far higher than any chair found in an office supply store. It was worth every cent. MacDonald had two of them, one in his apartment, one in his office at work. He switched on his computer and looked at the pictures on the desk as it was booting up. Himself with a smiling teen. A woman of striking beauty. A little girl of age two, a miniature copy of the woman, with happy, innocent eyes, smiling widely at the camera.

His son. His ex-wife. His dead daughter.

The old pain, far deeper than the one in his back, had dulled some over the years, but he knew he would never lose it. His daughter, little Annie, that picture taken mere weeks before he had fallen asleep at the wheel late one night and had killed her. He and Anne had never planned a child so young. They had married quite young themselves but agreed that they needed to get life sorted out and his schooling finished before starting a family. It never occurred to them that birth control wasn't 100%.

Annie had been a happy accident, and both of them adored her, but trying to make ends meet with a growing family while he was still in pre med, working hard for a scholarship to med school, and while she was trying both to work and be a mother had demanded more hours than either of them had. Still almost children themselves, they were plunged in one dive into the deep end of adult worries and responsibility. Eventually, late one night on what should have been a short trip back from picking up Annie at the evening sitter's house, being a full-time pre med student and holding down a job at the same time had caught up with him. He woke up in the hospital to be told that he would never walk again and that his daughter was dead. Only one of those had been true. If it had been in his power, he would gladly have traded which one.

Their marriage had ended that night. Oh, the date on the divorce decree was many years later, but that night, it had died with Annie, and they had lived as pleasant strangers on the good days and in bitter arguments on the bad ones. He had doggedly wrestled through a painful rehab and ultimately resumed his pre med route simply because he had to do something other than sit around and think. Ironically, it was his back injury that had decided his ultimate specialty. After a few bad experiences with insensitive or incompetent pain doctors, he had stumbled through pure chance onto a good one. The difference was night and day. Scott hadn't been born until he was in his second year of fellowship - rarely having sex did wonders as a birth control method. He and Anne had done their best to remain civil for their son, but it was really a relief the day she filed for divorce, like finally ending the drawn-out funeral and closing the casket on what they both knew was a corpse.

Scott was a delight. MacDonald had done his best on weekend visitations and longer periods in the summer to be the best father possible to him as he grew up, and they were close, far closer than he was to Anne. Just last year, Scott had moved to the US, at first on a student exchange study program, planned for just one term, but he had fallen in love with the country and the culture, and his emails and Skypes to his father had been enthusiastic. Long before he was scheduled to leave, he had started working through the required procedures to stay. So MacDonald, with nothing but Anne's pointed silences and Annie's grave to hold him in Scotland, had followed his son across the Pond this summer. He himself had no problems immigrating, of course. His reputation medically was well established. Now his practice was going well, he was seeing his son more regularly than he had in years with Scott on his own instead of living with Anne, and even if the memories had followed him from Scotland, that was no more than he expected. He didn't really _want_ to lose the memories. They were all he had left of her, his gorgeous little girl.

Looking away from Annie's picture, he realized that his computer was booted up and waiting patiently. He checked email, and there was a note from Scott. _Hi, Dad! I'm studying with a couple of the guys in the library tonight, big test tomorrow, and we thought bouncing it off each other might help get ready. Probably back too late, but should be able to talk tomorrow. See you Saturday. _

Smiling, MacDonald sent a reply. _Good luck with the studying. I love you._ He never lost a chance to say it. He was trying to stay out of Scott's way and not be stifling, not take too much advantage of being in the same city, but their relationship was the best thing in his life, and it had entered a new level since Scott started college.

Standing up, he headed for the bathroom and switched on the tub, running nearly straight hot. He had already eaten, having grabbed a burger on the way home from the office. He glanced at the clock needlessly; he always knew what time it was. At least he did now, in a world where he realized all too well the value of minutes, unlike that long-ago age where he had only felt their pressure and had thus unknowingly thrown many of them away. It wasn't late. He'd skim the channels on TV tonight, he thought, still enjoying his discovery of the American shows. But first a bath, soothing the day's aches. He wouldn't stay up too late, either. He'd spoken the pure truth to House: The schedule of work and sleep had an incredible impact on managing chronic pain, something he knew well firsthand.

House. MacDonald watched the tub filling and thought of his patient stalking out that day. He sympathized; really, he did. But on this point, he was inflexible. Not only was it a requirement of his and most pain specialist's practices for patients on chronic narcotics, not only was it highly endorsed by both malpractice insurance companies and the DEA, but in the specific case of House, MacDonald _wanted_ a contract. Not for fear of abuse but simply for spelling things out in mutual agreement, for leaving no wiggle room or misunderstandings or leeway. He was a little worried about House's schedule irregularity and wanted regular and honest feedback with his patient fully engaged in the therapeutic relationship and taking this seriously. Methadone could be trickier to handle than Vicodin. If they were going to do this, it needed to be closely managed. Still, he thought that methadone, plus the other measures he had suggested, really was the best answer here. Certainly, the Vicodin needed to be replaced. The long-term effects of it were too damaging.

A few other patients over the years had walked out at similar points. Some kept walking; some returned. He hoped House would return. The pain diary was clear that House's pain was not being managed, was just at survivable level instead. So much improvement could be made, but House would have to cooperate as a patient to maximize that improvement.

MacDonald switched off the tub and undressed. House had said he was seeing his psychiatrist tomorrow. His expression had been quite interesting in that part of the consult. He had resented MacDonald asking if he saw a psychiatrist, but he apparently did _not_ resent having one. He had been seeing him for a few years, even, and clearly, House had found it helpful. MacDonald couldn't imagine him being a patient of any specialist for a few years unless it was helpful; he would have walked out long since otherwise. So maybe tomorrow, their session would make a little progress on the subject of patient-doctor relations and how those really were relevant to treatment.

Removing his soft neoprene back brace, MacDonald stepped into the tub. Settling down into the marvelous, soothing, unkinking water, he wished House's psychiatrist, whoever he might be, good luck for Friday.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Here's a partial chapter. Sorry so short. We are now in musical rush hour of the year, and I'm tied up with extra rehearsals and concerts for my various groups. Added to that, work has gone crazy once it woke up after Thanksgiving. Simply trying to find time to sleep has been pushing it the last week. I'll try to keep the story going through the next few weeks of hecticness, but it probably will be in smaller segments than usual. The Jensen session gets quite intense but is at least able to be divided. This wasn't how I'd planned to do it, but life had other ideas.

(H/C)

House took the motorcycle up to his session on Friday afternoon. Weather wasn't bad, and at least the bike wouldn't jolt him shifting. This time, he carefully checked the official website for the transportation department, verified that the road construction was still going on, and worked out a suitable if longer bypass. He then left PPTH early.

The whole reason he loved the bike was the sense of freedom, of uncrippled power and smooth travel, but his trip that afternoon was a dismal failure as mental and physical escapism. He was still mad at MacDonald and additionally worried now about Wilson and the stability of source on even the old meds. His body along with his mind vividly remembered being cut off years ago and tensed up in anticipation. Furthermore, Cuddy was obviously both concerned and guilty, and by this point, he had realized that it wasn't just about her legal case, though it had probably had started that way. His fit yesterday had her firmly worried about him now, which apparently reminded her that she still felt guilty about his leg in the first place. Both of them had had trouble sleeping last night. The girls before bedtime had been worried, too, picking up on their parents' tension, and "I had a bad day" didn't quite seem to reassure them.

So this afternoon, he couldn't shut his mind off on the road or distract himself even to medicine, as much as he tried. His thoughts were traveling far faster than the bike. He also couldn't ignore the feedback from his leg. This was a much smoother trip without the constant stop-and-go speed changes of the road construction, but still, he was acutely aware of the difference in balance and pain. He wasn't what he had been a few years ago. For years, his physical life had been divided mentally into eras labeled BI - Before Infarction - and AI. Now, he found himself longing for even the crippled version of four or five years ago. By the time he made it to Middletown, he was newly aware of his leg's slow but relentless deterioration.

He was a few minutes early, thanks to his longer-than-usual travel time allotted, and he sat in Jensen's waiting room staring at the wall and holding his cane in both hands. Janice studied him as she did paperwork. Normally, House was quite interactive, teasing or analyzing her, dropping comments about people who passed in the hallway outside, noticing everything. Today, he seemed lost in thought, and he didn't even react as someone walked by, nor did he notice that she was watching him. Also, very unusually for him, he was still, holding the cane but not fidgeting with it at all, simply gripping it.

He did react when the door to the inner office opened and the previous patient exited. He jumped with a quick firing of pent-up nervous energy along all his muscles, then stood.

Jensen stood back, clearing the way to the inner office, though he didn't greet him until the other patient had left. "Good to see you, Dr. House."

House went over to deposit his aging body in his usual chair with the ottoman. He considered another, but tension warred with the fact that his leg would appreciate being stretched out after the bike ride up. Furthermore, Jensen would politely chew him out for it if he chose the other or would stay over here himself again with a gap between them, and House didn't want the distance. Not today. He knew he was in for a battle, but he preferred it at close range. "Go ahead and get it over with," he started. "You disagree with me, of course."

Jensen came across the room with a cup of coffee in each hand and settled down in his own chair. He looked at ease, but he inwardly steeled himself. House was obviously tied in knots about something. Jensen had been able to tell as soon as he went into the outer office, and Janice clearly had noticed, too. "What specifically do I disagree with you about today?"

"Don't pretend Lisa didn't call you after yesterday to give you a head's up."

"She didn't," Jensen replied. "I have no idea what you're upset about today, unless it relates to your appointment yesterday with MacDonald, and I'm only guessing that because of your reference to Thursday just now."

House shook his head. "She would have called you."

"I haven't talked to her since the night in New York a few weeks ago," Jensen replied.

House studied him, dissecting him visually. Cuddy really hadn't called? A few times over the years, in times of particular Housian crisis, she had let Jensen know so he could prepare, such as that day that House had tried to "toughen himself up" prior to the evidentiary hearing on Patrick by throwing every trigger he could think of at himself. As upset as she clearly was at the moment, he was surprised that she hadn't called ahead.

"She did not call me," the psychiatrist repeated. "What's going on?"

House finally accepted the fact, though it still puzzled him. All right, they could postpone his rehearsed argument he'd expected to have to make right at the beginning of the session. Changing gears from MacDonald and postponing the inevitable a little longer, he picked another related topic that loomed large mentally. "If Wilson - or anybody else - ever totally cut me off on pain meds, refused to prescribe at all, would you write them for me?"

Jensen's eyes widened. He absorbed that for a moment, and House could see his own curiosity burning away, but he took time before the questioning started to give House a straight answer. "No."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Another short snippet. Sorry, but this week is crazy. I have two performances this weekend, so this week is the biggest push of the season, and it's unexpectedly had something else added into it, too. Good things involved, potentially very good things, but that wasn't expected in an already busy week. So this is all I can give at the moment. More when I can, almost certainly not until after the double concerts this weekend. Thanks for reading.

(H/C)

Jensen saw the panic hit in House's eyes and pushed on quickly before his patient could totally shut down on him. "I _would_ make sure you got pain medicines. But I can't prescribe them myself. If you needed it, I'd be glad to refer you to somebody else I know professionally."

House's breathing was still a little fast, and his hand started unconsciously rubbing at his leg. The pain was turning up the volume, and Jensen knew that a part of it at the moment was emotional, though House's obvious tension was annoying it, too. "Why wouldn't you write them?" House persisted. "I thought _you_ believed me."

"I _do_ believe you," Jensen answered. "In fact, that's exactly why I don't need to be treating your pain." A quick flicker of confusion crossed House's face, overlaying the fear. "Think about it, Dr. House. If I didn't think your pain was real, if I thought it was 'all in your head,' then it _would_ fall under my specialty. But it doesn't. I'm a psychiatrist. I have no business prescribing for anyone in matters that are outside my field. I don't feel qualified for that. But I wouldn't let you go without them. Even if the others shut you off, I'd help you find somebody who would listen to you."

House was trying to listen, but the tension was still roaring through his body. Jensen reached over and touched him lightly on the arm, managing to take his pulse at the same time. "You're not going to be totally shut out of any treatment for your pain, Dr. House. Take an Ativan, okay?"

That, as Jensen had hoped, distracted House's attention from his inner turmoil. He looked down at Jensen's fingers on his wrist and then glared at him. "Sure you're qualified to prescribe that?"

Jensen ignored the dart. "It will help, emotionally and physically both. You are so keyed up right now that that itself is making the pain worse."

House considered arguing that point but found he couldn't. Slowly, he pulled out the bottles, found the Ativan, and took one.

Jensen took a few swallows of coffee, giving them both a minute. Once House's posture had reluctantly started to relax a little, the psychiatrist carefully began to excavate this minefield. MacDonald, he thought, had been the one to originally upset House somehow, but Wilson was clearly in there, too, and those two parts needed to be taken separately, saving the largest for last. "Why do you think that James might cut you off on the pain pills?" he asked, temporarily ignoring the fact that House had, at the last appointment, been ready to cut himself off them, at least the Vicodin.

"Because that's what he _does_," House fired back. "He decides what's best for me, whether or not it is, and puts it into action no matter what I think. He's done it before."

"Yes," Jensen agreed. "He's grown a lot since then, too. Did he threaten to cut you off? Think about that. Not in the past, but right now, just yesterday and today, did he say that?"

House dodged. "He thinks I need to get off the Vicodin. I know that."

Jensen resisted the temptation to point out that House thought that himself. That topic was coming in this appointment, but not quite yet. His patient needed reassurance first. "But did he say that he was going to cut you off?"

"He wouldn't announce it. He'd just decide to do it, for my own good. He'd talk himself into it and leave me no choice."

"You're confusing the past and the present again. You've made a tremendous amount of progress in the last few years, Dr. House. Grant other people that same privilege. Did he, in this week, say that?"

House sighed. Jensen could be the most annoyingly persistent person he'd ever talked to, and when the psychiatrist was locked on making a point, he was unwavering in his aim. Unless. . . "I don't want to talk about Wilson right now," House said. "Yes, we had an argument yesterday, sort of, but I'm not ready to talk about that yet."

Jensen fought back a smile. "All right, we'll wait on that subject, then. How did your appointment yesterday with MacDonald go?"

House shook his head. "You son-of-a-bitch," he said, almost admiringly.

"Well, we have to talk about something," Jensen pointed out. "Unless you'd rather write off this session. We could both get home early that way." House's expression was eloquent. Jensen knew that he really wanted to talk about the current problem, having learned by now how much it helped, and as wired as he had been when he entered, he couldn't possibly just forget about it and head back home. His thoughts would be relentless all the way, and once he got there, the girls would be waiting. Putting up a front last night, assuming this all started Thursday, would have taxed him to the limit. Repeating that tonight with no outlet in the meantime to ease the pressure was unthinkable.

Jensen let the silence expand, waiting. Finally, House admitted, "Wilson didn't threaten to cut me off. In fact, he said he wouldn't. But that's just what he said then. He was disappointed in me over the whole thing with MacDonald, and once he goes home and thinks it over. . ." House visibly shuddered.

"Home has changed for him, just like it has for you. He wouldn't be sitting alone and brooding last night. Hopefully, he talked it over with Sandra at some point, and do you think _she_ would simply stand by and accept him pulling the plug on all the prescriptions without saying anything? She's a nurse, Dr. House. She understands pain. She sees it daily."

That point hadn't occurred to House. Sandra had originally come to Wilson's attention when House was in the ICU after the car crash, and in fact, she had never accused him, by word or even expression, of overplaying his discomfort, neither chronic nor acute.

Jensen let that thought soak in. "I don't think James would do that to you again, Dr. House," he said finally. "But if he did, I'd make sure that you had access to someone else. Now, why was he disappointed in you yesterday?"

House sighed again. "You're not going to let me out of this, are you?"

"It _is_ your choice. Like I said, we can both just go home early. But no, I'm not going to spin out this hour simply avoiding the topic. You need to talk about this." Jensen picked up the coffee cups and went over to top them both off. "By the way, I forgot when you first came in. Cathy sent you some fudge." He picked up a Tupperware container on his desk. House hadn't noticed it until now, which surprised him as much as the fact that Jensen had forgotten it, too. The psychiatrist must have been that focused on him as they entered the office.

Jensen offered him his cup and the fudge, then sat back down. "What did I do for her?" House asked, puzzled.

"Played Flight of the Bumblebee for her a week ago after our session. Remember going home with me last Friday?"

Last Friday. It seemed an eternity ago. House took a square of fudge and chewed it thoughtfully.

"What happened yesterday?" Jensen asked.

Accepting the inevitable, House began.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thanks for the musical well wishes. It was a good weekend. In terms of fanfic timing, things are about to get more complicated. Within the last week and a half, out of the blue, I was referred for a job by a friend who knows me and my writing. An attorney writing a book is having a hard time bringing it together and ending it and wanted to hire someone to help him edit, rewrite, and wrap it up. After the friend referred me, I contacted the author and then had an interview in person last Wednesday, which went quite well. We know exactly what's expected on each side and think we can work together, and I'm really looking forward to this assignment. There's another book project after this one that would involve a lot of historical research before the writing starts (I drool at the thought; I adore history), but we're just agreed on the current project at the moment. If he likes me, I imagine that one will follow. Anyway, this is a part-time job, a paid job, added into my already full schedule. The first edited draft is due back at the beginning of January. This is going to take up time for probably the next several months in spurts as we work back and forth. Obviously, that will take priority over the fanfic, which is just recreation and is free.

I am not quitting the fanfiction. As said previously, Pain is especially close to me as a story, and there are at least two more in the series after it, one short, one long, as well as a fascinating non-series idea for a House story (long) that I'm playing with. But the fanfiction is being forced to drop down a slot in line. I'll try to keep at least a chapter every week or two, but it all depends. I'm juggling a full-time job, Mom, music, my project farm, my own writing, and now somebody else's writing as well before I ever get down to fanfiction. It's not even two weeks ago that I first heard about this opportunity. How quickly life can change - and, as Jensen reminds House at times, there are good changes, too, not just bad ones.

Enjoy this update and bear with me on the schedule. I'm not going to abandon you, but you'll have to be patient.

(H/C)

House finished his report and stopped, breathing accelerating a little again just thinking about it.

Jensen, listening, was more and more surprised himself that Cuddy hadn't given him a heads-up on this. There was something odd there, but he didn't have leisure to consider it right now. Firmly pushing curiosity aside, he took a minute to arrange the new problem, weighing approaches. One thing that he loved about House's sessions was that they were rarely boring. House sharpened him, kept him on his toes mentally much as a good workout did physically. Jensen valued their friendship, but he also enjoyed the challenge. Now, he laid out the routes and landmines mentally, then jumped straight in. House had already been fighting with himself on this for a full day, and Jensen thought he would appreciate directness, even if he wouldn't admit that.

"You're right," the psychiatrist said. House, who had been studying the far wall, snapped back to attention and arched an eyebrow. "Like you predicted at first, I don't agree with you."

"Great. Thanks for playing, and I'll see you next week." House started to stand up slowly.

"About that contract, you're basically up against three problems here," Jensen continued as if his patient hadn't even moved.

House couldn't resist that hook and settled back into the chair. He took another piece of fudge, shoving the full thing in in one bite.

"First," Jensen said. "MacDonald unfortunately reminded you of John at the end of that appointment. Rules, procedures, the impression of a military rigidity."

"The _impression_ of a military rigidity?" House challenged. "It wasn't just an impression; the contract flat out stated it. He wants to control my whole life just for the privilege of prescribing for me."

"Think back over the appointment before that. Just delete the last five minutes. Did MacDonald seem rigid and unwilling to listen to you?"

"You _can't_ delete the last five minutes," House objected. "He was working up to it. Had it all there prepared."

Jensen shook his head. "He is not John, Dr. House. He wasn't laying a trap for you. If you still think he was, then he went far enough to apparently require this of all his patients on chronic narcotics just so that he would be able to hit you with it."

"There's a difference between me and his other patients," House stated.

"Which is?" Jensen asked.

House stared at him, caught off guard by the simple question. "I'm a doctor myself. A damn good one."

"And that is the third problem here. First, he reminded you of John. Third, you have difficulty accepting a patient-doctor relationship from anyone, because you have a tendency to want to treat yourself."

"If you're the best in the field, then you're entitled to some input," House shot back. "And what was second?"

"We'll get there," Jensen replied. "You're the one who jumped over it; we weren't done with point number one yet. I would have taken them in order. Of course, they are all somewhat intertwined anyway."

House almost started to smile before he caught himself. "You are damned annoying at times," he said.

"Sorry. Back to point three, since you want to be there at the moment, why do you have a pediatrician for the girls or a doctor for Dr. Cuddy? Why was a neonatologist in charge on Abby's case after she was born? Assuming for a moment that you _had_ been physically capable of taking over, would you have?"

House sighed. "No. That's not my area of practice."

"Precisely. Nobody can be an expert in all fields, Dr. House. There is nothing wrong with admitting that somebody who is an expert in their field might know more about it than you do. Furthermore, you aren't objective. There's an excellent reason why we don't treat ourselves. You agree with that point about the girls and Dr. Cuddy, and you don't mind them having their own doctors, but you still have a tendency to ignore that with yourself. Think of a few times when you've decided to be the psychiatrist, for instance. Nothing good came out of it. MacDonald has an excellent reputation; that's why you picked him. Furthermore, he's clearly listening to you, asking your perspective and what you might and might not consider in treatment. But bottom line, you have run into somebody who on this point will not give in. He is going to be the doctor, and you are going to be the patient, with good reasons for that approach, and if you go back to him, you will have to accept him as your physician."

"I'm not going back," House said stubbornly.

Jensen ignored the refusal, not picking it up for debate. "How many patients have you met whom you would just hand your medical license to, Dr. House?"

House rolled his eyes. "Those idiots? Are you serious?"

Jensen grinned. "Exactly. Think of this from MacDonald's perspective. The laws involving narcotics are getting tougher all the time. He is responsible for what happens with his prescriptions. No matter what you think, if a patient misused a prescription, that would reflect on MacDonald. It goes back to him. He has the responsibility for what he writes, and he takes that responsibility seriously. He obviously does _not_ think you are an addict; he said so himself. The offer of methadone immediately without requiring failure off the stronger meds first confirms it. But not only does he see plenty of people who are misusing meds, there is still the question of unintentional misuse, and I do see you as a threat on that. I wouldn't be surprised if he did, either."

House had been starting to relax a little, but he tensed back again there. "Unintentional misuse?"

"Think back a few years ago. You misused the high-dose NSAIDS and narrowly avoided a bleeding ulcer from it."

"I did not misuse them," House protested. "I just got distracted. Wasn't thinking about it."

"What's the difference?" Jensen asked. "If patient A has a GI bleed from meds because he decided to give himself one intentionally, and patient B has a GI bleed from meds because he just got distracted and lost track, what's the medical difference there in treatment or in how serious either case could get?" House didn't answer. "The other primary purpose of a contract, Dr. House, is to spell things out and to emphasize that this is a serious matter. Not just because the doctor doesn't trust you but because the medications can be dangerous if misused, no matter why you are misusing them. Pain contracts are very widely used nowadays. Their purpose is to lay out expectations and precautions clearly, and that purpose is valid even if you aren't an addict."

"Wilson's never asked me to sign one," House grumbled.

"He wouldn't dare, but I'm sure he's wished he could change things. That's not based on what he's told me confidentially in sessions, just an educated guess on my part. But I would bet a fair amount that he feels over his head in treating your pain, has felt that way for quite a while, and is worried because you aren't giving him sufficient feedback on the meds and aren't treating this like a doctor-patient relationship. You don't consider him your doctor, Dr. House, but you still have asked him to prescribe for you, and that really is not fair to him."

House promptly dodged, returning to the first point. "I am _not_ confusing MacDonald with John."

Jensen followed him willingly. "I didn't say you were confusing them. What you are doing is trying to stick it to John even posthumously by choosing the opposite of how he thought and lived. What you don't realize is that that isn't freedom from him. It's just another form of bondage to the memories." House gave a low growl. "_Truly_ being free from someone's influence, Dr. House, is letting them have no impact on your decisions. None. You might chose as they would or might not, but making it your choice, without even considering what they would have thought. To just decide opposite from someone by reflex is still giving them a vote over your life and actions."

"What's number two?" House demanded.

Jensen allowed the change of focus. This was a tough session, and he knew that the points weren't lost on House, even if he didn't acknowledge them. He would have plenty to think about later. "The second obstacle is your basic nature. Yes, you are trying to act opposite to John, but you also are quite independent minded and stubborn anyway. Totally aside from your background, totally aside from your medical qualifications, you are not the most cooperative person on the planet. I think that would still hold even if John hadn't raised you and if you weren't a doctor."

House had to laugh. "Not the most cooperative person on the planet. Really?"

Jensen let himself smile, the moment breaking some of the tension. "That's the sort of insight you're paying me to give you."

House snorted. He took another piece of fudge, but Jensen noted that he was chewing it more thoughtfully this time, not just shoveling it down. "So because I'm allegedly reacting against John, because I'm a stubborn jerk at heart anyway, and because I'm not a medical specialist in all areas, you think I ought to go back to him."

"No," Jensen replied. House looked confused. "I think you ought to go back to him because that is the best thing for treating your pain. Your welfare trumps all three points for me, and I'm sure it does with Dr. Cuddy and the girls, too."

"You said you could refer me to someone else," House reminded him.

"I can, but not with credentials as impressive, and whatever pain specialist I picked would probably pull out a contract, too. You chose MacDonald for a reason, Dr. House. Nothing involving that reason has changed." House started to gather himself for a protest, and Jensen pushed on. "Really, I'm quite impressed with him myself from your description of the appointment. The part before the contract came up, I mean. He had some excellent suggestions. Amitriptyline, for instance. It might well help with the neuropathic pain, and the psychiatric qualities probably wouldn't hurt, either."

"Why didn't you slap me on an antidepressant when I first came to you years ago?" House asked abruptly.

"Partly because you were just waiting for me to. I think that was part of your stock picture of psychiatrists. You were very suspicious on anything to do with meds, just waiting for that shoe to drop in the first few appointments. I did offer you sleeping pills in response to your statement about nightmares, though it turned out you'd already added them, but I tried to avoid suggesting an antidepressant immediately. I also wasn't sure myself if your depression then was situational related to your background or biochemical. There is a difference, though some gray area between, too. If you hadn't responded as well and as quickly to the sessions as you did, I would have suggested that within a month or two of us starting."

House was looking thoughtful. He had indeed almost been expecting Jensen to whip out the SSRIs from the first appointment, and he had been impressed that the psychiatrist had not. It was one of the things that first had caught his attention about Jensen. He looked at his grandfather's watch. "We're out of time."

"Yes. One last thing to think about, Dr. House. You were ready to go through detox for your family. They were your reason for doing this, and that hasn't changed. Your health and how Vicodin affects it haven't changed. Is your pride, both personally and medically, worth more to you than your family is?"

House couldn't take that one sitting down, which Jensen had expected. That was why he'd saved it up as a parting shot. House heaved himself out of the chair, started to stalk toward the door, and then remembered the fudge. He retreated long enough to pick up the container, then left without a farewell.

Jensen took a minute to breathe, letting the tension out now. A very tough session, but he thought progress had been made. Janice stuck her head around the door. "Are you all right?" she asked.

He smiled at her. "Just catching my breath." He stood up and stretched.

"Is _he_ all right?" the secretary asked.

"I think he will be. He just can't ever do anything the easy way." He picked up his coat. "We both need to be getting home. Good night, Janice."


	15. Chapter 15

Thomas sat on the back deck, watching his granddaughters play.

It was now standard practice for him to babysit on Friday nights, arriving to let Marina leave on time, enjoying time with them and with Lisa once she returned from her session in Trenton, and then staying on after the girls were asleep while his son and daughter-in-law had their weekly date night.

A new tradition and one which he relished. He didn't play around with Lisa with the memory of that disasterous first time babysitting back in May, as she still felt guilty and ruffled by it. Greg, however, was a different story, and his son regularly asked Thomas as he arrived back from Jensen whether any new relatives or claimants to the title had shown up so far that evening.

Right now, Abby was in the small sand box turtle, constructing some structure with as much attention to detail as if it were a pyramid, and Rachel was dividing her time between building a barn in the sandbox and simply running around the yard with the stuffed Ember. They had already had a ride on Thomas for a few minutes earlier. All three of them, the girls as coconspirators, tried to limit that activity to times when Greg wasn't around. He knew they did it, and he couldn't object, but the few times he'd watched had been so obviously painful for him that Rachel and Abby had noticed themselves. But Thomas didn't have endless capacity as a substitute horse, and even while he was in good shape, his granddaughters had more energy than he did. So they had moved on to other games at this point, calling over now and then for his attention or approval, and he simply sat here soaking up the moment and, in one corner of his mind, worrying.

Lisa had called him yesterday and warned him not to ask Greg about the appointment with the pain doctor. She had sounded tied up in knots herself but was hoping that Jensen would help convince him to see reason today. Thomas sometimes wished that he had bequeathed a little less stubbornness to his son. He'd love to have a good fatherly talk with him on the subject of compromise, but he didn't think he quite had enough status yet to make it helpful rather than antagonizing.

So much time lost. Still more remaining, though, and Thomas was thoroughly enjoying living in Princeton, even through the family trials and when problems came up. That only emphasized to him that the family was real.

"Ember can run, Grandpa Thomas!" Rachel called. He smiled watching her. He had been trying to show her how to canter lately, at least a 2-legged facsimile of a canter, and she was skipping around the back yard but unable to hold the gait steady, breaking out often into a full, regular run through exuberance.

"I can see that," he called. "You'll be a horse yourself in no time."

She laughed, and so did Abby. Thomas drank the sound in.

His life these days caught him off guard at times with the pure joy of it. Only a year ago, he and Greg had been involved in their cautious email dance, not even speaking yet. Only a year and a half ago, he had been in Europe still, slowly resigning himself to continued living but not to life. He had thought that real happiness, much less joy, was over for him, buried with Emily, and endurance was the only future he'd envisioned. Now he was part of his son's life, had Lisa, and even had grandchildren, and he could see them daily if he chose. New doors were opening. To his amazement, life wasn't finished with him yet.

Part of him almost felt guilty sometimes. He knew Emily would have wanted him to go on, would have been delighted for him, but damn it, he wished he could have shared this new life with her. She had loved poetry, and just last night, he had been reading again from one of her books a favorite sonnet of hers by William Wordsworth.

_Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind_

_I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom_

_But Thee, long buried in the silent Tomb,_

_That spot which no vicissitude can find?_

_Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—_

_But how could I forget thee?—Through what power,_

_Even for the least division of an hour,_

_Have I been so beguiled as to be blind_

_To my most grievous loss!—That thought's return_

_Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,_

_Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,_

_Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;_

_That neither present time, nor years unborn_

_Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. _

Now, watching his granddaughters, he said softly, "I wish you could be here, too, Em."

The breeze picked up, and the leaves on the trees rustled. The evening was starting to get a little chilly, and Thomas carefully considered the girls. They had sweaters on. Rachel's was unbuttoned, but she was certainly keeping herself warm enough, anyway.

The back door to the house opened behind him, and Lisa emerged.

"Mama!" The girls swarmed up, giving her a welcome hug. Thomas waited his turn last but held on longest. She really did look ruffled tonight, he thought as he released her. Probably her session had been spent dissecting how best to handle Greg in this latest problem while waiting for him to see reason.

"Are you all right?" he asked her softly once the girls had given an excited report of their day, asked if today was hell day like yesterday had been, and finally drifted off to the sandbox again.

She sighed and nodded. "Hard session. I'm just worried about Greg."

"He'll give in eventually, I think. He loves you all. He was doing this for you in the first place."

She smiled and gave his arm a squeeze as they sat side by side. "Thanks, Thomas." She looked at her watch, and Thomas did likewise, but Greg couldn't possibly be due back yet. It wasn't even quite time to start cooking for the girls.

"Hopefully you two will have a good, relaxing date tonight and get your mind off things for a while," Thomas said. "You both could use it."

"I hope so. He will be a little late; he sent me a text about road construction and said he was taking a longer way. His car's in the garage, so he took the motorcycle." Worried creased her features.

"He is careful with it, Lisa. More careful than he used to be, I'm sure." She nodded but still looked thoughtful, and Thomas decided to try to distract her from concerns about her husband, his current bullheadedness, and that motorcycle ride home.

"I wanted to bounce an idea off you, Lisa." He looked toward the girls, but they were 15 feet away and busily playing. Even so, he dropped his voice another few volume notches. "About Christmas. How do you think Greg would take it if I gave him a new car?"

He was surprised by how _she_ took it. Her tension level doubled on the spot. "I. . . he. . . oh, damn it!"

"That bad?" He looked at her curiously. "I know he's attached to that old thing. He would have sold it ages ago if not. But really, he could use an upgrade."

She sighed again. "Yes, he could. I'm not sure what that car means to him. Maybe it's just that he's had it for so long, since before his leg, but . . . I don't know. He doesn't talk to me, not about that, not about his leg. And it's not like I haven't asked him, but he clams up. I haven't _got_ any information here, not from him!"

She seemed to be getting agitated herself now, and he reached over to her. "Easy, Lisa. I'm sorry if I brought up a sore subject."

She looked startled, as if catching herself on the edge of something, and pulled back, trying to give him a routine, unemotional answer. "It's a good idea, Thomas. I'd love it, but I'm not sure about him. Definitely not without advance notice and input. Not a Christmas morning surprise or something. It would have to be his choice."

Thomas shook his head. "I was afraid of that. Lisa, are you sure you're all right? You haven't even protested how much that would cost me."

She gave him a slightly shaky smile. "I'm okay. That _is_ a lot for a Christmas present."

"I owe him several back ones, and I also made a nice profit on the house in St. Louis. Not that it wouldn't make a big dent in things, but he's worth it." He studied her. "Lisa, you know you can talk to me if you need to, whatever it's about. I'm here."

She blinked back a few threatened tears and leaned over to his chair to give him a hug. "Thank you, Thomas. And I love having you here. We all do, even him." Pulling away, she stood up. "Are you getting hungry, girls?" she called. In the subsequent rush of activity, the chance for private conversation was lost.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: A short update, hopefully more toward the end of the week. I have a mini vacation then, and while I'm planning to work myself into the ground outside on things around the farm, there is a limit to that, especially in the winter, so I should have some inside time, too.

(H/C)

House was fuming all the way home. His family _was_ important to him, damn it, and the fact that he didn't want to indulge MacDonald's power trip on the contract didn't negate that. The two things had _nothing_ to do with each other. He was annoyed at Jensen for taking that shot, but after all these years, he couldn't help thinking about what the psychiatrist had said both then and earlier in the session, and that annoyed him more.

At least his route tonight, even if longer, was steady travel, and the road construction was successfully dodged. He arrived at Princeton only about 30 minutes late.

He pulled the bike into the garage and took a moment after dismounting to consider the two cars side by side, the old Dodge and Cuddy's far newer SUV, replaced after the car accident with the drunk driver that had totaled her former one. There was the old man's BMW outside, too. The contrast was stark even to him. This wasn't a competition, House insisted stubbornly to himself. There was a valid reason he'd hung onto the Dodge, just as there was a valid reason that Cuddy wanted her set of wheels, and the old man's car was a rolling emotional monument to the past itself. Besides, the Dodge was still running, just needed some work. He'd have to bite the bullet and call the garage soon. He could imagine Cuddy's eye roll when the Dodge would have to be in the shop for a few days. He couldn't help telling her then. She considered it a hole to throw money into already, and the fact that they could afford to throw that money into a hole if they wished carried no weight with her.

The door rattled behind him, and he turned too abruptly and stumbled a little, his leg not yet settled down from the trip. He caught himself and was limping toward the door by the time it opened and Rachel erupted from the house. "Daddy!" She charged up to him, and he stopped to pick her up and give her a hug.

"Hi, Rachel." He looked over to Abby, carefully picking her way down the steps. Cuddy and Thomas stood just inside the house. "Hi, Abby." They should be just about ready for bedtime but were obviously still charged up, wanting to see him. He'd been by earlier in the afternoon to swap the Dodge for the bike before heading for Jensen's, but they had been taking a nap then.

Abby, having achieved the garage floor, trotted over to him and tugged on his good leg. Rachel was still wrapped around him. "Still hell day, Daddy?" Abby asked.

House fought back a sigh. They had been picking up on his tension last night, not even accepting the "bad day" excuse Jensen had recommended once. "No, it wasn't hell day. This was a good day. I fixed a sick person this morning."

"Yay!" Rachel gave him another hug, and Abby tugged on him again.

"My turn."

House set Rachel down, and she obviously thought about protesting but then looked back at her mother watching from the doorway. He picked up Abby for her welcome hug, tickling her just a little to wipe that analytical look off her face, at least temporarily.

"Come on in, Greg," Cuddy said. "We were waiting for you."

"Kind of got that impression," he said, setting Abby down. The girls flanked him as he limped the final few feet.

"You said there was road construction?" Thomas asked. He was looking at the Dodge himself, and House pushed on a little faster, lifting both of his daughters up the stairs and then climbing them and firmly closing the door. He gave Cuddy a welcome hug, then turned to answer his father.

"I took another route. You know, that whole term is inaccurate. Road construction. Isn't there already supposed to _be_ a road there?"

Thomas grinned. "That's debatable on some of them. Still, it's a good point for semantics. Maybe you could write the highway department and make some more accurate suggestions for their signs."

House was startled into a laugh, and Cuddy groaned, picturing what his suggestions might be. "Save the fan mail for the highway department until another day. The girls were just about to have a story."

"I wanna read," Abby insisted. She trotted into the living room in pursuit of the current book, and Rachel followed her. The three adults were left looking at each other.

"They'll be asleep soon," Thomas said. "You two could go on now if you like. You could use a break from everything tonight."

House grumbled under his breath. He'd already guessed that Thomas was fully informed as to what had happened with MacDonald yesterday. He glared at him, challenging him silently to mention it. "No, we'll wait until they're asleep. Good time with my daughters anyway. The family is important to me."

Both Cuddy and Thomas looked startled at the vehemence of his last line. "We know the family is important to you, Greg," she assured him. "So do the girls."

Rachel at that moment galloped back with the stuffed Ember, whinnying and snorting in impatience. "Come _on_," she urged.

House smiled at her. "Okay, Rachel. I'm coming."

Abby was already on the couch with the selected book for the evening, working through the pages with it open on her lap. She flipped back to the beginning at once when he sat down. "You read, Daddy."

"I thought you wanted to read," he teased her. Rachel climbed up on his other side.

"We can read 'gether!" Abby told him.

House started in. He tracked the words with his finger, and after he read each, Abby and Rachel would work on sounding it out. It made for slow progress through a story, with bits of the current sentence repeated as it grew, but House didn't mind. Both of his daughters knew the majority of letters now, with Abby better at fitting them into words. Rachel got annoyed at that fact sometimes but not tonight. This evening, she just snuggled into her father and seemed content to be there, not making as many contributions even as usual.

Abby never tired of work on reading, even on a hell day, and she was right with him per routine, but after a while, her responses started slowing down just through fatigue. He finally stopped asking her input and just kept reading, and she jolted herself back awake a few words later. "No! You skipped, Daddy."

"I didn't skip," he corrected. "You fell asleep."

She shook her head vigorously. "_Rachel_ fell asleep. I can read. You skipped."

"Can't slip anything past you, can I? I ought to know better than to try." He saw Thomas' smile out of the corner of his eye as he retreated to the previous location. She was with him for about five more words, then her head fell against his shoulder, and this time, she didn't wake back up. House finished reading the book, all of the adults afraid to move them too soon, but they were solidly out.

Thomas reached down to pick up Rachel, and Cuddy took Abby. "Back in a minute, Greg."

He pried himself to his feet. "I need to say goodnight to them, anyway." He followed the other two and couldn't help noticing that even burdened, they were faster.

Finally, with the girls tucked in, Thomas retrieved his own book for the evening, and House and Cuddy set off for their belated dinner and date.

The restaurant was a favorite, but House barely tasted the food. Cuddy seemed just as distracted as he did. "Tough day?" he asked her as they set out from the restaurant toward their movie.

They had a "no questions on sessions" rule and tended to avoid discussing them at all on Friday nights. He didn't specifically mention Patterson, just leaving it open ended.

She smiled at him in an effort to be reassuring as she stopped at a light. They were in her car, of course. "It was . . . a tough day. Yes." She hadn't enjoyed her session at all. Patterson had picked up unerringly on the fact that she was hiding something, and it had been _so_ tempting to confess to her about reading the pain diary. There was confidentiality there. Patterson might even have some good advice for how to handle bringing it up when the time came. But Cuddy still couldn't help feeling that House should know first. Not Patterson, not Thomas, who would have been willing and helpful, too. No, she might ask for advice after, but her husband would get it straight from her, not practiced on other ears in advance. He deserved that, and she deserved to have to do it that way.

But the time wasn't right yet. She still felt that her husband was walking a fence on this whole issue with MacDonald, swaying a little bit to each side. A blow like that from the person closest to him might well topple him on the subject altogether. Let him keep thinking about things. He'd obviously had a hard session himself. Then, once he had given in, as she thought he finally would if she stayed out of it, once he felt for himself a few days of what an improved pain regimen would be like, she would talk to him then.

She hated the waiting in the meantime, though, almost as much as she hated the guilt. She wished the whole thing, both her coming confession and his debate with his stubbornness over the contract, could be jumped, and they could land a few weeks in the future safe on the other side.

He was still watching her. "Didn't enjoy my day much, either," he offered. That was as close as he would come to talking about it, but even that much was a touch of the soul across the connection between them, trying to support her and bring them together. She blinked hard a few times as she put the blinker on and turned into the movie theater.

Afterward, neither of them would have been able to describe the plot of the movie in detail. They sat there together in the dark, holding hands, thinking. House couldn't get away from that damned last comment of Jensen's. He did appreciate his family. And yes, he knew he needed to get off Vicodin. But to sign that contract . . .

Wait a minute. He straightened up a little in his theater seat and didn't notice when Cuddy looked over. Why did the two things have to be connected? He didn't have to sign the contract to get off Vicodin; he'd planned detox before the question of methadone even came up. MacDonald _had_ had some good suggestions otherwise. Chiropractor, TENS, inserts, amitriptylene. Even some prednisone to get him through the acute period; House had had prednisone before, and while he knew that wasn't something to stay on long term either, his body always reacted very well to it, all aches easing. It would help during the initial adjustment.

Maybe it would be enough. He would have to go through detox, but maybe, once detoxed and just dealing with the pain, the other measures could handle his pain and leave him functional. Especially if Wilson would continue prescribing the injections for the worst times; even MacDonald had conceded that House would need something for the 10s. No question of working at those times, and he had been very careful over the years not to work under the biggest guns that clouded his mind. But maybe the other steps would be enough for regular days.

That also would let him go back to MacDonald, who _was_ an expert in the field after all, and just accept other prescriptions and medications without signing the narcotic contract. Wilson would never require a pain contract on the morphine. House could imagine MacDonald's expression as he walked back in. The pain specialist would think he had won, would have the contract all ready for signing, and then House would play his ace and make it clear that he had returned on _his_ terms, and he still wouldn't sign that damned paper.

MacDonald plus Wilson for the breakthrough meds. The perfect combination. It might work. He didn't have to sign that contract to quit Vicodin or to get MacDonald's advice on treatment. And he _did _value his family. He could have it both ways; no compromise was required.

People around them were standing, and he realized to his surprise that the movie was over. Once he and Cuddy were out in her car again, he reached over to capture her hand before she turned the key. She deserved some reassurance promptly. "I've been thinking," he said. "I'm going to go back to MacDonald."

She gave a sigh of pure relief, and he went on. "But I am _not_ signing that contract. He had some good ideas aside from that. I can quit the Vicodin and try those, and Wilson will still prescribe the morphine for the breakthrough pain. Maybe the new regimen will be enough, even without regular narcotics. I'd still be getting MacDonald's management and input, but he doesn't win this way."

Cuddy's relief hit a road block early on during that speech. "But you'd have to go through detox."

He shivered. "I know. But I was going to anyway. I'm doing this for you, you know. I _do_ care about my family."

Cuddy turned away, afraid to face him, and tightened her hands on the wheel to keep them from wandering over and smacking her husband's stubborn head against the back of the seat. She had been worried even before the question of methadone came up that managing his level of pain without narcotics might not work, and she knew that he had as well. Now he had decided to put himself through this course not purely motivated by her and the girls, regardless of his words, but also by bull-headed refusal to give in.

He sat with a defiantly pointed chin, staring out the window, probably imagining scoring on MacDonald at his return appointment. Cuddy forced back her comments. He couldn't call MacDonald until Monday. Let him keep thinking through the weekend about what Jensen had told him; he wouldn't be able to help it. (She was sure Jensen had _not_ told him to put himself through detox as a way of sticking it to MacDonald and avoiding the contract.) They drove home in silence.


End file.
